German beech forests added to UNESCO World Heritage list

Jun 27, 2011, 10:21 GMT

Paris - Five German beech forests were on Saturday declared United Nations World Heritage Sites.

A committee of experts from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) agreed that the forests in the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Thueringen und Hessen were of 'outstanding universal value.'

The forests are an extension of the primeval beech forests of the Carpathians in Slovakia and Ukraine, which were declared World Heritage list in 2007.

The UN World Heritage List is made up of over 900 remarkable cultural and natural sites in 151 countries, which have been earmarked for conservation.

The designation is highly sought after and seen as a draw for tourism.

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has been meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris all week to consider submissions for 37 new additions to the list.

On Friday, the committee added the Ningaloo Coast, a massive area of reefs and caves on the remote western coast of Australia, the Kenya lake system in the Great Rift Valley and Japan's Ogasawara Islands, to the list.

Situated 1,000 kilometres south of Japan's main archipelago the Ogasawara Islands, which number more than 30, are home to the endangered Bonin Flying Fox bats and 195 endangered bird species.

The 708,350-hectare Ningaloo Coast includes one of the longest near-shore reefs in the world and is an annual meeting point for whale sharks. Sea turtles are also found in the area.

The Kenya lake system, meanwhile, comprises three inter-linked shallow lakes - Lake Bogoria, Lake Nakuru and Lake Elementaita - where several threatened bird species and rare animals, such as black rhinos and African wild dogs, can be seen.