Natural World Heritage, Nature’s most precious gifts to humanity

Conserving the diversity of life on Earth is critical to global human welfare. With the support of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention (1972), natural sites around the world benefit from international recognition, making their protection the duty of the international community as a whole. World Heritage properties may therefore access technical and financial assistance to deal with threats such as agricultural encroachment, invasive species and poaching.

The World Heritage Convention is one of the most successful international instruments to protect the most extraordinary natural places on the planet, characterized by their natural beauty or outstanding biodiversity, ecosystem and geological values. The Convention has provided international recognition to around 3,500,000 km2 in over 250 terrestrial and marine sites across more than 100 countries, and while certain gaps in the World Heritage List remain, it currently protects an extremely valuable sample of our natural heritage.

To be inscribed on the World Heritage List, a site must have values such as superlative natural phenomena; represent major states of earth’s history, demonstrate significant ecological and biological processes and contain important natural habitats.

Since 2017, the best-protected parts (integral forest reserves) of the Sonian Forest are included as components of the World Heritage property ‘Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe’. This transnational property includes 94 component parts in 18 countries. Since the end of the last Ice Age, European Beech spread from a few isolated refuge areas in the Alps, Carpathians, Dinarides, Mediterranean and Pyrenees over a short period of a few thousand years in a process that is still ongoing. The successful expansion across a whole continent is related to the tree’s adaptability and tolerance of different climatic, geographical and physical conditions. The World Heritage Committee has recognised the site as a shared testimony to the exceptional evolution and impact of the beech ecosystem in Europe since the last Ice Age.

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