What Does Unesco Recognition Mean, Exactly?
WORLD HERITAGE is big business, bringing hordes of tourists to poor countries that can use the jobs and the cash. It can also overwhelm the very sites it is designed to protect with all the less-savory aspects of mass travel, from chain hotels and restaurants to the impact of thousands of sport-shoed feet treading on fragile ground.
But World Heritage can also be an odd business, giving recognition to traditions (like premodern tribal dances and giant French family meals) that might have little aesthetic value to any group except the one that practices it.
Whatever the merits, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) has embraced the concept. In fact, Unesco loves heritage so much that it has created two treaties to enshrine it.
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In his book “Disappearing World: The Earth’s Most Extraordinary and Endangered Places,” Alonzo C. Addison, a director in Unesco’s external relations department, arranges sites in varying degrees of distress from a variety of causes, including conflict, theft, development, pollution, invaders and tourism.
Conflict is the most obvious threat, whether in Afghanistan, Jerusalem, Kosovo or around the Preah Vihear temple on the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where there have been three armed clashes since the temple was listed.
full: http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/travel/whats-up-with-all-the-unesco-sites.html
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