Today two representatives from IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), Dr. Oliver Avramovski from Macedonia and Dr. Wendy Strahm from Switzerland, completed a one-week journey – the field mission – during which they visited parts of the Wadden Sea that are nominated for an extension of the Wadden Sea World Heritage.

The nominated property encompasses the Danish Wadden Sea Conservation Area and an offshore extension of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park.

The nomination dossier for these parts of the Wadden Sea was submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Center in  Paris earlier this year and the field mission is the next stage of the property evaluation by IUCN experts. The main aim of the field mission is for the experts to become familiar with all the aspects of the nominated property and make sure that the nomination dossier is complete.

“We are proud and confident presenting the nominated property to the IUCN experts. We very much hope that Denmark and further areas of Lower Saxony will join the Wadden Sea World Heritage and we will finally have the entire area of the Wadden Sea designated and included in the prestigious World Heritage List”, - says Jens Enemark, Head of the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, that coordinates the nomination process.

The field mission programme included a visit of major Wadden Sea stakeholders in Denmark and Lower Saxony, such as the National Park Authorities, the Danish Nature Agency, the National Park Boards  and Common Wadden Sea Secretariat. The nominated Danish part of the Wadden Sea was of a special interest for the IUCN representatives. The experts had acquired comprehensive information about the Danish Wadden Sea through the meetings with the National Park Board at the information center Myrthuegård, representatives from the tourism sector, scientists,  education organisations, site mangers and municipal authorities. In addition, the delegation  had an opportunity to experience the nature on foot by taking a walk on dikes and in salt marshes of Skallingen in Denmark and taking part in the tidal flat tour in Lower Saxony as well as to see the area from a bird’s-eye view by flying over the Wadden Sea from Esbjerg to Wilhelmshaven.

After the field mission, the experts will compile an evaluation report that will be further examined by IUCN World Heritage Panel together with the Nomination Dossier.  The decision on the nomination of the Danish and Lower Saxon extension of the World Heritage property is expected to be taken at the World Heritage Committee annual session in June 2014 in Qatar.

The complete programme of the field mission can be downloaded here.

Photos © CWSS
Above: IUCN experts with the Wadden Sea hosts: (from left to right) Jens Enemark (CWSS), Peter Ilsøe (Ministry of the Environment, Denmark), Mr Kai-Uwe Bielefeld (Chair National Park Advisory Board, Lower Saxony), Peter Südbeck (Head of the Wadden Sea National Park of Lower Saxony), Wendy Strahm (IUCN), Oliver Avramovski (IUCN), Elsa Nickel (Federal Ministry for the Environment, Germany), Kay Nitsche (Federal Ministry for the Environment, Germany), Hubertus Hebbelmann (Ministry of Environment, Lower Saxony).

Right photo: Wendy Strahm (IUCN) takes notes while standing the salt marshes of Denmark.