Managers from over 40 marine World Heritage sites met in Ajaccio, Corsica, from 18 -20 October 2013. As follow-up of the meeting on Hawaii in 2010, this was the second time that the UNESCO World Heritage Marine Programme has invited site managers to exchange experiences from sites representing the “Crown Jewels of the Ocean”.

The Wadden Sea World Heritage was represented at the meeting by Jens Enemark and Harald Marencic (both CWSS) and Klaus Koßmagk-Stephan (National Park Administration Schleswig-Holstein).

Marine World Heritage sites reflect a high diversity of marine habitats, from beautiful sea areas around islands, fascinating species and precious coral reefs, but share the same challenges to protect them with regard to climate changes, invasive alien species, marine pollution, shipping and fisheries, all issues which require global cooperation.

This second meeting provided many insights how other marine sites deal with these challenges and how the sites can help each other from their wealth of experiences and capacity. The cooperation on the protection of migratory birds between the Wadden and West-African countries in the framework of the Wadden Sea Flyway initiative, in specific with Banc d’Arguin in Mauretania, was presented as a success story. As a result, a twinning arrangement between these two marine World Heritage sites is currently being discussed. Other examples are cooperation between Phoenix Island and Hawaii, as well as between Glacier Bay and the West-Norwegian Fjords on cruise ship management. In Europe, cooperation of the eight European marine and coastal World Heritage sites started with the first workshop of site managers in Tönning in April 2013 (link).

The Corsica meeting also provided exercises for site managers on communication of the site, e.g. on how to prepare an ‘elevator pitch’ and how to translate the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value by the World Heritage Committee for each site into concrete management measures.

All site managers welcomed this second meeting as an opportunity to strengthen the ‘family of marine World Heritage sites’. Many informal talks showed the great commitment of all managers for the marine programme and their pride of being part of this global family.

The concluding remarks of the conference were also presented at the subsequent third International Marine Protected Area Conference which took place from 21-27 October 2013 in Marseille, France.

More information about the meeting:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/resources/managing-marine-world-heri...

More information about the Marine Programme
http://whc.unesco.org/en/marine-programme/