UNESCO World Heritage Sites VS 7 Wonders Of The World
Have you heard of how there was a campaign launched to get everyone around the globe to vote for seven new wonders of the world? It was a big deal, and of course there have been numerous wonders of the world lists. UNESCO is an organization that works to protect world heritage sites, which certainly can include wonders of the world. It's called the UNESCO World Heritage Program, and there is also a World Heritage Center. Their website offers more valuable information about the program and their mission.
UNESCO goes a lot further than just identifying these sites or wonders of the world though. They help countries preserve and protect the sites that are listed. If you thought that UNESCO is the organization that picks the seven wonders of the world for each list, well they don't. In fact, this last time when the campaign was launched to vote for the world wonders, UNESCO was offered the opportunity to help out multiple times says one source, and the organization didn't get involved.
One argument is that the people that pick the world wonders only serve to list them. UNESCO as mentioned is all about preservation. UNESCO has its own World Heritage List, and it considers its approach educational. They distance themselves from the Seven Wonders Lists that aim to be more popular with the media and pop culture. UNESCO takes a scientific approach and again, they aim to assist in the preservation of the world heritage sites.
The last time there was a campaign to pick the seven wonders, it was handled by phone and online. It's really odd to me seeing the sites that were picked because it seems to me that all of them have been on the lists before. Some of them are ancient ruins, which means they might have been on the original 7 Ancient Wonders of the World list. To me, stuff like this should be figured out and handpicked by organizations, not the masses.
UNESCO agrees with me, and that is why they wanted nothing to do with picking the wonders of the world that way. Did you know that UNESCO is a United Nations organization? I didn't know that, but it makes sense. They are always identifying and protecting world heritage sites across the globe, and they take their efforts very seriously.
Did you know that you can make donations to the UNESCO World Heritage organization? That is one way that you can help protect the sites around the world. With the New Wonders of the World Campaign, there was no preservation involved. It was only about picking the new wonders and hyping up the campaign to get people excited. You can imagine they were more than happy to get involved and choose world wonders from their respective countries.
Do you know how many properties are on World Heritage List? I had no idea, and so when I saw there were over 700 of them, I was a little taken aback. That's quite a few, and there are also 183 natural heritage sites. Do you think that you would recognize them all? I know I wouldn't, but I would probably recognize more than I think.
I wonder how many of the World Heritage sites are in the United States. You don't often hear many of the sites mentioned being anywhere in the US except the Grand Canyon. I'm sure there are more, but I'm just saying that the ancient world and other countries usually rule the lists. Either way, UNESCO will continue as an organization to help preserve the sites on their list, and the Wonder of the World lists will just continue to be for pop culture for the most part.
