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IUCN WCPA World Heritage Thematic Group

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IUCN COMMISSION GROUP

IUCN WCPA World Heritage Thematic Group

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Overview and description

Description:

The IUCN-WCPA World Heritage Network is one of the largest thematic groups within IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas, bringing together more than 600 members from around the world who share an ...

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The IUCN-WCPA World Heritage Network is one of the largest thematic groups within IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas, bringing together more than 600 members from around the world who share an interest in World Heritage conservation.

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Group leadership

Mr Cyril KORMOS

Vice-Chair
Thematic Vice Chair, World Heritage and Primary Forests. Cyril is Founder and Executive Director of Wild Heritage, a project of the Earth Island Institute. He also serves as…
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Thematic Vice Chair, World Heritage and Primary Forests. Cyril is Founder and Executive Director of Wild Heritage, a project of the Earth Island Institute. He also serves as IUCN-WCPA Vice-Chair for World Heritage, sits on IUCN’s World Heritage Panel and chairs the IUCN-WCPA World Heritage Network. He was a Lui-Walton Innovator’s Fellow at Conservation International from 2016-2018 and became a National Geographic Explorer in 2018. Cyril also serves as a member of Project Drawdown’s Scientific Advisory Board, a member of Treesisters’ Advisory Board and an Advisor to Nature Needs Half. Cyril is also a co-founder of, and on the Steering Committee for: IntAct: International Action for Primary Forests and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Primary Forest Task Team. Cyril has edited several books, including A Handbook on International Wilderness Law and Policy (Fulcrum Publishing) and two books in the CEMEX Nature Series: Earth’s Legacy: Natural World Heritage and A Geography of Hope: Saving Primary Forests. He has also published extensively in scientific and policy journals. Prior to Wild Heritage, Cyril was Vice President for Policy at the WILD Foundation, and before WILD, was Senior Director for Program Management in the President's Office at Conservation International. Cyril holds a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.Sc. in Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Cyril was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management in 2015-2016.

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Natural World Heritage sites are internationally recognised as the world’s most significant protected areas and include iconic places such as the Serengeti, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Galápagos Islands. Because of their high recognition, they offer crucial insights into the successes and challenges of protected area conservation worldwide.

Objectives

The IUCN-WCPA World Heritage Network supports IUCN’s work on World Heritage, which is implemented by the IUCN World Heritage Programme. Its mandate is to:

  • Assist on a regular basis IUCN in its core function as an official advisory body on nature under the World Heritage Convention, through a highly experienced group of experts within IUCN-WCPA. This includes support to IUCN’s work relating to the monitoring of sites, evaluations of candidate sites’ nominations, and thematic guidance documents.
  • Help meet the increasing demand for technical assistance and information gathering for the IUCN World Heritage Outlook, which assesses all natural World Heritage sites.
  • Ensure that WCPA follows necessary standards and procedures for IUCN’s work on World Heritage, recognise WCPA members who are appropriately experienced and skilled, and actively develop and train a group of experts within WCPA, ensuring regional, language, gender and age balance.
  • Take advantage of WCPA members’ capacity to help maintain the World Heritage Convention’s credibility and address threats to World Heritage sites.

Becoming a member

This is a “Network” rather than a “Specialist Group” as, while all members share an interest in World Heritage, only some of them are confirmed experts in the field or engage directly in World Heritage-related work.

Membership is open to all 2017-2020 WCPA members. If you would like to learn more about joining the IUCN WCPA World Heritage Network, please email wcpaworldheritage@iucn.org

The IUCN-WCPA World Heritage Network is chaired by Cyril Kormos, Vice-Chair for World Heritage within IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas and Vice-President for Policy at the WILD Foundation. Cyril sits on the IUCN-WCPA Steering Committee and is a member of the editorial board for the Commission’s PARKS journal.

At a glance

Official name:
IUCN WCPA World Heritage Thematic Group
Associated Commissions:
World Commission on Protected Areas
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