Odisha’s Bhitarkanika fails to get UNESCO World Heritage Site tag

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Jul 11, 2017 at 10:59 PM Updated On : Jul 12, 2017 at 8:06 PM

Bhubaneswar: The famous Bhitarkanika National Park (BNP) has failed to earn UNESCO World Heritage Site tag, list of which has been published recently.

“The World Heritage Committee, meeting in Krakow since 2 July, this afternoon (Sunday) ended the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List with the final addition of three cultural sites in Brazil, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and the approval of the extensions of Strasbourg: from Grande-île to Neustadt, a European urban scene (France) and The Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau (Germany),” UNESCO posted on its website.

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The three newly-added sites are: Aphrodisias (Turkey), The English Lake District (United Kingdon) and Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site (Brazil).

It may be mentioned here that the temple of Aphrodite dates from the 3^rd century BC and the city was built one century later. Similarly, the English Lake District is a mountainous area, whose valleys have been modelled by glaciers in the Ice Age and subsequently shaped by an agro-pastoral land-use system characterized by fields enclosed by walls. This landscape was greatly appreciated from the 18^th century onwards by the Picturesque and later Romantic movements, which celebrated it in paintings, drawings and words. It also inspired an awareness of the importance of beautiful landscapes and triggered early efforts to preserve them.

On the other hand, Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site is located in central Rio de Janeiro and encompasses the entirety of Jornal do Comércio Square. It is in the former harbour area of Rio de Janeiro in which the old stone wharf was built for the landing of enslaved Africans reaching the South American continent from 1811 onwards.

A team of experts from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had visited the second largest mangrove forest in India in November last year. The people of Odisha were hopeful that the national park would get the World Heritage Site status after the famous Sun Temple of Konark.

While the IUCN had recommended the World Heritage Committee, the committee met at Krakow, Poland to take a final call during its 41^st meet from July 2 to July 12.