Half of natural World Heritage sites at risk from industry, says WWF

Industrial activity such as mining and logging threatens almost half of the world’s natural World Heritage sites, the WWF conservation group said today. From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, companies are putting some of the most precious sites in the world at risk. The WWF urged companies to obey U.N. appeals to declare all heritage sites “no go” areas for oil and gas exploration, mines, unsustainable timber production and over-fishing. “Despite the obvious benefits of these natural areas, we still haven’t managed to decouple economic development from environmental degradation,” WWF director general Marco Lambertini said in a foreword.

Instead, too often, we grant concessions for exploration of oil, gas or minerals, and plan large-scale industrial projects without considering social and environmental risks.

WWF’s Marco Lambertini

A total of 114 World Heritage sites out of 229 worldwide that are prized for nature or a mixture of nature and culture were under threat, according to the study. The WWF findings are far higher than the 18 natural sites listed as “in danger”, a more severe condition, by the World Heritage Committee of the U.N.’s cultural agency UNESCO. The WWF rates the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, as under threat from mining and shipping, while the 15th-century Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru, named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983, is threatened by logging, the WWF said.

Protecting natural areas and ecosystems is not anti-development.

Marco Lambertini