English Lake District World Heritage Site inscription announced

Wasdale – copyright Andrew Locking

From the World Heritage Committee meeting in Krakow, Poland, the UK National Commission for UNESCO announced yesterday:

T­­­he English Lake District, a cultural landscape in North West England that inspired Romantic poets and conservationists including William Wordsworth, John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter, has been inscribed onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

The Lake District was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the World Heritage Committee at its 41st session in Krakow, Poland, in July 2017.

World Heritage Sites are areas recognised for their ‘Outstanding Universal Value’ (OUV), meaning their cultural or natural heritage transcends national boundaries and is of importance to present and future generations of all humanity. Recognised for its landscape of mountains, valleys and lakes intertwined with over 1,000 years of human activity, the Lake District will now become the UK’s 31st World Heritage Site, and one of five World Heritage Sites in the UK recognised as a “cultural landscape.”[1]

The UK’s 31 World Heritage Sites form an important part of the diverse UNESCO family in the UK. This now includes over 160 UNESCO designations such as Creative Cities, Global Geoparks, Biosphere Reserves and UNESCO Chairs. All these designations are working toward the common aim of enhancing peace, security and sustainable development by fostering international collaboration through education, science, culture, communication and information.

[1] These are Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (England), St Kilda (Scotland), Blaenavon Industrial Landscape (Wales), and the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape (England).