DURBAN, South Africa, July 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The World Heritage Committee (WHC) overlooking conservation of global heritage sites started to convene its annual meeting on Sunday in Durban, South Africa, to review 42 proposed sites for inscription on the prestigious World Heritage List.

    The proposed sites include 28 cultural sites, 10 natural sites and four mixed sites presented by 44 countries, including Albania,China and the host country South Africa.

    Four countries, namely Bahrain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gabon and Moldova, could for the first time see one of their sites to join the list, said the committee.

    The Durban meeting is the first WHC session held in the sub-Saharan Africa since 1972, when the UNESCO approved a convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage.

    The following is the basic facts concerned with the World Heritage List.

    World heritage is the designation for places on earth that are of outstanding universal value to humanity and as such, have been inscribed on the World Heritage List to be protected for future generations to appreciate and enjoy.

    For over 30 years, the United Nations' cultural arm, UNESCO, has been working with countries around the world to identify worldheritage sites and ensure their safekeeping for future generations.

    Once a country signs the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and has sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, the resulting prestige oftenhelps raise awareness among citizens and governments for heritage preservation.

    The UNESCO's Convention is a treaty that has become, over the past 30 years, the foremost international legal tool in support ofthe conservation of the world's cultural and natural heritage, with 178 countries having ratified it, making it an almost universally accepted set of principles and framework of action.

    Greater awareness leads to a general rise in the level of the protection and conservation given to heritage properties. A country may also receive financial assistance and expert advice from the World Heritage Committee to support activities for the preservation of its sites.

    Places as unique and diverse as the wilds of East Africa's Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America make up the world's heritage. Over 750 cultural, natural and mixed sites have been inscribed on the World Heritage List.

    As of July 2004, there are 788 properties on the World HeritageList, including 611 cultural sites, 154 natural sites and 23 mixedsites, while 35 of the sites are on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

    Cultural heritage refers to monuments, groups of buildings and properties with historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific,ethnological and anthropological value.

    Natural heritage refers to outstanding physical, biological andgeological formations, habitats of threatened species of animals an plants and areas with scientific, conservation and aesthetic value.

    Out of a total of 788 sites in the world, Africa as a continenthas 63 sites, including 31 cultural sites, 30 natural sites and two mixed.

    Africa is the most underrepresented continent accounting for only 7 percent of properties on the World Heritage List. Chad, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde and Namibia do not as yet have any sites on the World Heritage List.

    Swaziland, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea Bissau, Djibouti and Somalia have not yet ratified the Convention.

    In addition, almost a quarter of African sites are on the List of World Heritage in Danger which means that 43 percent of the total list of sites in danger are in Africa. This is mostly due toinadequate resources and capacity, poverty, civil war and the influx refugees into protected areas. Enditem