Blog Connections

Centres of Plant Diversity

In its evaluations, IUCN over the past years has shown a tendency to refer to a site’s inscription on another list or similar accolade to substantiate its importance. As they say in their 2023 update to the WHC:  “systems such as WWF’s Global 200 Priority Ecoregions, Conservation International’s Biodiversity Hotspots and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas, Birdlife International’s Endemic Bird Areas, and IUCN/WWF Centres of Plant Diversity, provide useful Guidance”. For floral sites, the go-to-list is ‘Centre of Plant Diversity’. As plants are underrepresented anyway among the connections, I created a new one around these Centres.

What are Centres of Plant Diversity?

Centres of Plant Diversity (CPD) are regions of the world that hold a significant number of plant species and/or have a high number of endemic species. The criteria used are: “Most mainland sites have in excess of 1000 vascular plant species, of which at least 10% are endemic, including some that are termed ‘strict endemics’- those endemic to the site. Island sites typically have fewer species, but a higher percentage of these are endemic.” (source)

They were defined in collaboration between the WWF and IUCN and published in a three-volume publication (1994-1997). They are not being further updated. I’ve found it impossible to find a full list of them, but apparently, there are 234 (there may be global and regional ones, it’s unclear). No form of special protection or management seems to be attached to the label.

Connected Sites

I found the following connected sites by doing searches on the UNESCO WH website, the UNEP-WCMC datasheets and in the evaluation files of sites we have put in the category ‘Wildlife habitat – Flora’.

  • Agastyamalai and Nilgiri Hills (these may be 2 separate CPD’s): Western Ghats
  • Afroalpine: Simien Mountains, Bale Mountains
  • Altoandina: Los Alerces, Los Glaciares (photo 3).
  • Blue and John Crow Mountains (name unsure): Blue and John Crow Mountains
  • Cape Floral: Cape Floral Region Protected Areas (photo 1)
  • Chiribiquete-Araracuara-Cahuinari Region: Chiribiquete
  • Drakensberg: Maloti-Drakensberg Park
  • Kinabalu (name unsure): Kinabalu Park
  • La Réunion: Pitons of Reunion (photo 2)
  • NZSAI and Macquarie Island: New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands, Macquarie Island
  • Primorye: Central Sikhote-Alin
  • Shennongjia: Hubei Shennongjia
  • Socotra: Socotra Archipelago
  • Valley of Flowers: Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers NP

Central Amazon Conservation Complex, Manu National Park, Mount Kenya, Lagoons of New Caledonia, and the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan are also part of a CPD, but it is unknown which one.

Do you know more about Centres of Plant Diversity? Or have you come across additional WHS that can be added to this connection?

Els - 17 March 2024

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Blog TWHS Visits

Fell and Pali Aike Caves

As (T)WHS Travellers, we are blessed that we ‘have to’ visit several sites spread across the Argentinian and Chilean parts of Patagonia. In 11 days, I travelled the area from North to South, covering Los Alerces, Cueva de las Manos, Los Glaciares, and Torres del Paine. Along the way, the landscape changes from forests to glaciers to barren steppe. I finally ended up at Pali Aike NP, the southernmost of the Patagonian (T)WHS. Here windy and cold weather is said to be the norm, but I was lucky to get there on a slightly sunny day, with 11 degrees Celsius and no strong winds.

Pali Aike NP protects the Fell and Pali Aike Caves (the name of the TWHS), and a much larger volcanic landscape. The park lies some 190km from Punta Arenas right at the border with Argentina. I rented a car for the day, as I thought that it would be hard to find a tour going there (seeing the penguin colonies is a much more popular day tour choice). The drive there is easy, just the straight quiet roads that are common in Patagonia. And to top it off, of course, 28km of gravel road to get to the park entrance. This was easily doable in my small rental car. Along the way, there are mostly sheep farms. I had a funny encounter just before arriving at the park gate: a herdsman on horseback was driving all his sheep onward, crossing the road. They ran in multiple single files. I waited for a while to let them pass, as I did not want to hit one and they did not seem to be able to stop. The ranger at the park later told me that this guy manages 8,000 sheep.

The Fell and Pali Aike Caves tentative site is a cultural proposal, focusing on Paleoindian history. What are now known as the earliest hunter-gatherers that have ever lived in this region have left traces such as tools, cremated skeletons and bones of hunted animals. The latter include species now extinct, or that became extinct in the Americas such as the horse before being reintroduced. The age of the findings goes back to almost 11,000 years ago and this is another site that is considered by some as undermining the Clovis First theory. Although the site roughly dates from the same era as Clovis, it challenges the theory anyway because human migration from New Mexico to Southern Patagonia could not have occurred so fast and findings such as the fishtail arrow points show independent development.  

Pali Aike National Park is well-organized from a visitor's perspective. At the entrance, you pay your fee (5,500 pesos / 5 EUR) and you get an explanation from the ranger and a brochure about what you can do and see in the park. There are a few exhibits of findings as well. To the general visitor, the volcanic features may be the most interesting, and most trails focus on those as well. Be aware that you still need to drive deeper into the park after the entrance gate, about 20km in total (this is especially important as you have to keep an eye on your fuel levels, as gas stations are few and far between). I started with a look at the salty Laguna Ana, where I met some guanacos who weren’t too skittish.

The best area however is the one you reach turning right after the gate. Here the steppe starts to mix with dark volcanic rocks. You can walk into a crater, but I went straight for the Pali Aike Cave. This is also part of a collapsed crater and the rocks are fully overgrown with lichen and moss; they look very weird (see Photo 3). A half-hour trail awaits with some information panels about the life of the Aonikenk, the indigenous population of Patagonia. The Cave itself is what you would expect from any old cave where important archeological findings have been made – there’s nothing special to see!

From what I was able to find online, the other of the two caves (Fell Cave) can only be visited with special authorization. It is not displayed on the park map and seems to lie on private land. Still, Pali Aike NP is a fine place to visit also for its natural features.

Els - 10 March 2024

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Els Slots 10 March 2024

Fortunately for you, Liam, the Worker Assembly Halls will be a serial transnational nomination with plenty of locations in Europe. So no problem missing the one in Buenos Aires.

Pali Aike of course is more grave: it's a unique representation of the region.


Liam 10 March 2024

I think I've passed by here by less than 40km. So, selfishly, I hope it doesn't get inscribed!

I'm still reeling from this week's reviews of the CGT headquarters in Buenos Aires revealing that I probably walked right past it (or, at most, one block away) in 2012.


Blog WHS Visits

WHS #894: Los Alerces National Park

It’s hard to get all that you want from Patagonia. There was too much demand for bus tickets so I couldn’t go all the way from North to South by public transport. There also was too little demand for a ‘Safari Lacustre’ so I could not get on a boat tour inside the Los Alerces National Park to see the Alerces in a forest setting (they seem to run only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday but the schedule is highly variable). And then on January 25, a devastating bushfire broke out affecting 6,924 of the 188,379 ha of the park. Only a few days before my visit in late February, it was all under control. I did not see any smoke, firemen or scorched ground – the fires were much further north than the area usually accessed by tourists,

I brought a rental car from Bariloche airport to cover Los Alerces, which at least provided me with additional flexibility. Arriving from Esquel at the central park gate around 9am, I stopped to pay my entrance fee, but I did not need to pay anything. Maybe they temporarily suspended it because of the fires?

Driving in this area takes longer than you think. You may not drive faster than 40km/h and the final 20 of the 32 km from Villa Lahautan to Lago Verde, where the main activities are, is unpaved. So by car, I was maybe only half an hour faster than the 2.5 hours given as an indication for the bus ride by previous reviewers. The unpaved road is wide and fairly level, so it’s perfectly doable with a standard car. Another aspect of note for self-drivers: there is a parking fee collected at both the Pasarela (1,000 Arg pesos per hour, about 1 USD) and Rio Arrayanes (4,000 pesos, waived if you spend more than 10,000 pesos at the attached restaurant).

I was in the park between 9 am and 4 pm and covered the following areas. All these short hikes that I mentioned are well-signposted and easy to do:

  • Villa Futulaufquen: had a look at the Visitor Center there, but it was closed. Walked the rock art trail nearby. The rock paintings are barely distinguishable abstract figures. I did however enjoy the Mirador which lies just above and provides views over Lago Futulaufquen. Not for the last time the area made me think of the Canadian Rockies.
  • Mirador Lago Verde: Drove up to the start of the trail to the Mirador Lago Verde, which offered fine views of that lake.
  • Pasarela: Drove back down for a few km to the Pasarela Rio Arrayanes, a footbridge (photo 1) with good river views. Did the walk to the Alerce Solitario from here (photo 2). Not a photogenic tree! Ate the lunch I brought with me at the dock of Puerto Chucao. Some 200m further along the trail, there’s a very fine viewpoint from a beach across Lake Menendez to the Torrecillas Glacier (see large site photo and photo 3 below).
  • Rio Arrayanes: Drove another km down and parked close to the river at a large lot. Here is the start of the trail to Viejo Lahuan. It’s a cool forest trail to end up at yet another uncooperative Alerce tree (they grow towards the riverside and 'turn their back' to the forest side where the trail is). On the way back I met an elder Argentinian couple waiting for me – they did not dare to continue on the trail as it was blocked by a whole family of cows including two babies and what the Argentinians thought was one bull (I was less sure of that). In the end, making loud noises drove them away.

After that last experience, I was sure: there can’t be that many cows in a core zone of a natural WHS! I had a good look at the official map again and it turns out that only the areas on the ‘other’ side of the Arrayanes river are included. IUCN triumphantly concluded that “the entire legally declared National Park is uninhabited and roadless” (so there’s a No Road Access connection). On the ground, the park does not visually distinguish between the two areas (also not on the provided tourist map) and the park entrance gate has a large UNESCO logo but isn’t even in the buffer zone. Essentially you need to cross the ‘Pasarela’ on foot to enter the core zone (the trail to the Alerce Solitario is the easiest choice).

Els - 3 March 2024

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Jay T 3 March 2024

Well if it reminds you of the Canadian Rockies, then I must go there some day!


Blog Connections

WHS in TCC Territories

One of the oldest travel communities with an online presence is the Travelers Century Club (TCC). They started as a social club in 1954 for those who had visited 100 countries. They now have more than 1,500 worldwide members (2021). The club is private (no free sharing of information online) and a yearly membership costs 75/85 USD (depending on whether you’re a US resident or not) plus a 100 USD initiation fee.

The TCC never did appeal to me much, as their website seems to come straight from the 1990s, they display more of an appetite for social events than travelling and you can even ’get’ ('buy' of course!) a pin to display your status. But they must be admired for their stamina and consistency in maintaining the TCC List of Countries and Territories. At least there’s a committee that makes the decisions and they follow a certain logic in updating their list.

More than Dependent Territories

Currently, the list consists of 330 places. There’s a neat Excel spreadsheet available that divides those into UN countries and other territories. My main interest for this blog post and the new connection lies with the latter.

We have struggled with the definition of our Dependent Territories connection, as it excludes for example overseas provinces. TCC uses a much wider definition for their Territories. They use both political criteria (a place has to be de facto independent for several years for example) and geographical criteria (such as being situated at least 200 miles from the closest continental portion of its administrating country). The rules are here.

From the TCC spreadsheet, I’ve taken the ones filled with ‘Territory’ or ‘Disputed’ in the 'Status' column that hold at least 1 WHS. Additionally to our Dependent Territories they also have Galapagos, Hawaii, Phoenix Islands, Lord Howe Island, Ogasawara, Ryukyu Islands, Tasmania, Alaska, Martinique, Azores, Canary Islands, Fernando de Noronha, Madeira, Balearic Islands, Corsica, Greek Aegean Islands, Ionian Islands, Northern Ireland, Sardinia, Scotland, Sicily, Srpska, Turkey in Europe, Wales, French Antarctica, Zanzibar, Egypt in Asia, Reunion (photo 2), Socotra, Lesser Sunda Islands, Russia in Asia, Sabah, Sarawak, Sikkim, Sumatra, Papua, and Tibet as separate Territories.

Findings

I added them all to a new Connection: Located in a TCC Territory. It lists all WHS that are located in a TCC ‘Territory’ which isn’t a country. I may have overlooked one or two, so let me know when you find a mistake.

Almost all WHS were easy to match to a TCC territory, but I had to think a bit about the following ones:

  • Gough Island (see photo 3, taken by Solivagant) – this is not a separate territory but a dependency of Tristan da Cunha. 
  • NZL Sub-Antarctic Islands – I think this is seen as part of New Zealand as there is no other option, but according to Wiki “Although considered integral parts of New Zealand, [these island groups] are not part of any administrative region or district, but are instead each designated as an Area Outside Territorial Authority” 
  • Macquarie Island on the contrary is named under the separate "Australian Antarctic Territory (Davis, Heard, Macquarie, Mawson)". Here they lump together the WHS of the Heard & McDonald Islands and Macquarie Island, which are over 5,000 km apart. Also, Macquarie is politically a part of Tasmania and not of the Australian Antarctic Division as the others are.

Overall I feel the TCC list overvalues islands, and not only difficult-to-access, remote islands but also easy ones that lie right off the coast of their mainlands such as several Greek islands. You can earn 31 'TCC ticks' in the Caribbean, and 40 in the Pacific Ocean, but only 14 in South America.

Member Statistics

Of course, I couldn’t add this connection without adding a statistics page to see which community members are particularly strong on visiting WHS in TCC Territories. You can now find the results via the Community Statistics / Most Intrepid page.

My initial observations from these:

  • The people with the most WHS visited overall also have the most visited in TCC Territories. Only 2 do slightly better at this than in the regular rankings: Harry Mitisidis (from position 18 -> 5)  and Roger Ourset (15 -> 6).
  • WHS Community Members with very high TCC scores (I used Nomadmania as a source for these data) such as Don Parrish (330/330), Harry Mitsidis (325), Sacha Grabow (308) and Shihe Huang (306) do not score extraordinarily well on the WHS in the TCC Territories. Don misses out on all WHS on the Canary Islands and the Azores for example, while Harry has work to do in Indonesia (I used their Missing Map on whs.org as a source for this).

I would love to hear from a TCC member who also ‘does’ WHS, whether visiting WHS is a ‘thing’ in that community and what counts as a meaningful visit to a TCC Territory.

Els - 25 February 2024

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Roger Ourset 26 February 2024

Dear Els,
Thanks much for your kind appreciation! You too are doing an incredible work for the worldheritagesite.org site which is helping us much in our search for visiting more WHS!
I agree with you about the TCC inclination to give preference to island : an example I faced recently when I visited the federal republic of St Kitts and Nevis : for the TCC this very small country (one among the smallest in the Caribbean) is counting for 2 territories!
I am not following you about the fact TCC Members are not great travelers : in our Francophone Chapter it is always very difficult to gather all the members as many are just travelling when a meeting is organized! it will be my case when I miss a Brussels dinner soon as I'm currently in Pakistan, doing rather the same trip you made some months ago!
We are also sharing information about difficult or less know territories as I owe to the Chairman o my Chapter the idea and the advices to visit Somalia as I did before heading to Pakistan!
I'm also keen to visit many territories as I'm a vexillologist and like to take pictures of flags of subnational entities!
Best regards,
Roger


Els Slots 25 February 2024

You really stand out on the combination of WHS and TCC, Roger! Good to hear from you.


Roger Ourset 25 February 2024

I'm a member of the TCC since few years and have visited 225 territories according to its list.
There are regional chapters, mostly in the USA as the TCC has long been a mostly US associate, but more Chapters have been created, especially in Europe and meetings are regularly set up; on my side I'm a member of the Francophone Chapter which is open to TCC members from France, Monaco, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and to whom is comfortable with a French speaking group and we have isolated members from Africa and other areas far away from Western Europe.
The TCC doesn't stress on WHS but I met some members who are eager to visit them, like me!
Roger Ourset


Eric Lurio 25 February 2024

I used to be a member and have been to well over 100 of their listed entities.

The problem was that, they weren't very friendly and didn't have any events I could get to.


Blog TWHS Visits

The Underwater City of Port Royal

We saw confirmation in December 2023 that Jamaica planned to submit The Underwater City of Port Royal as its 2025 nomination; whether they did so in time I could not verify. It will be their fourth attempt to get this site inscribed. It was rejected in 1988 (only the terrestrial area, deemed of national importance only), deferred in 2019 (more focus on the 17th century needed and worries about a cruise ship pier) and had an incomplete dossier last year. In 2019 ICOMOS did find some potential OUV though (“a possibly unrivalled illustration of an English colonial town in the 17th century”) and Jamaica may now have taken the right path of approach that will lead to an inscription. It will consist of a terrestrial and a marine part (comprising an underwater archaeological site). My review will only cover the terrestrial part, which I visited earlier this week.

Port Royal, a small fishing town at the end of a tombolo known as Palisadoes, is easily reached by bus from Downtown Kingston. The ride on bus 98 takes 45 minutes and costs 70 JD (0,40 EUR). This bus also stops at the airport, so you could theoretically combine a trip to Port Royal with your departure or arrival. Be aware though that it is a very hot area and you won’t want to carry any luggage. It’s a relaxed place to roam around for a bit, a random guy yelling out to me in the street “Hey! Do you wanna buy a crab?” exemplifies the laid-back atmosphere.

The main touristic focus of Port Royal nowadays is Fort Charles (photo 2). It has been restored in 2021 and is fully equipped to receive visitors. The entrance fee for foreigners is 15 USD and includes a well-conducted guided tour of the grounds. This fort was one of a row of five that protected the harbour of Kingston – the other four disappeared underwater during the deadly earthquake and tsunami of 1692 that gave Port Royal the nickname of ‘Sunken City’. It shares the tip of the peninsula with the coast guard and we heard them conducting shooting practice during the tour.

What we now see at Fort Charles mostly is its 19th-century incarnation, but built on the 17th-century vestiges that were designed in the shape of a ship. The fort was reused after the city fell into ruins, but it had to change its outlook as it was no longer surrounded by water. It got an impressive new long-distance canon at the Victoria and Albert Battery.

The terrestrial part of the nomination also probably includes a significant part of Port Royal town. This can be explored on foot via a short self-guided walking trail provided by the tourism board. All stops have information boards. Two areas of major importance in the 17th-century narrative are now surreal ‘sights’: there’s a paved parking lot that was built on top of Chocolata Hole (where the ships were cleaned) and a football field (photo 1) that covers the remains of Lime Street, the pre-1692 commercial center which was partly submerged. The terrestrial remains have been excavated but were covered up again for their preservation.

The only visible remains from the 17th century are “believed” to be parts of the walls of the former women’s gaol (photo 3) – a building that survived “14 hurricanes, 6 earthquakes and 2 disastrous fires” since 1710. Another notable historic building in town is the Naval Hospital – it was built in the 19th century from prefabricated cast iron parts shipped from England. It looks impressive but cannot be entered, a sign says they are working on its restoration.

So overall, the site is something like the Pile Dwellings meets Valongo Warf. On the positive side, by upgrading Fort Charles this has become the visitor center for the potential WHS and it saves a visit from being a total disappointment. Its chances for inscription should mostly rely on the underwater archaeological remains. Besides found objects such as tobacco pipes, Chinese porcelain, drinking glasses and pewter (tin) spoons, the main features are five houses that were part of Lime Street whose construction details have been preserved underwater.

Els - 18 February 2024

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Kyle Magnuson 18 February 2024

There seems to be more confirmation via Twitter that it was submitted by the end of January.

The updated name should be "Archaeological Landscape of 17th Century Port Royal"


Blog WHS website

More Stats!

This is a follow-up to last week’s blog post, and to an earlier one: several people have reached out to me saying that they want more statistics! I did have quite a number of these queries already available in raw format, and they were easy to transform into public pages that are dynamically updated. So that’s what I did in the past week.

Most potential I think lies in the data centered around Community Members and around Countries. As a start, I have focused on the Community data. I will look into the possibilities regarding Countries after my upcoming 6-week trip to the Americas.

Preconditions

Of course, it would be technically possible to combine the data of every community member (1563 with at least 1 WHS visited) with every category/connection/year/country, etc, but that would not lead to particularly interesting pages to look at. And running all those queries would be too hard on the database as well.

So I started working with the following preconditions:

  • Use the Hall of Fame approach: the travel goal should be relatively hard to achieve.
  • The lists should show a diversity of angles so that people can excel in their niche and the members with the highest overall scores do not always end up first.

The first batch

The following pages are now live and accessible via this link (also in the Navigation Bar via Community/Communitystats). They are dynamically updated once a day – which means that when you ‘tick’ your final Italian WHS your name will automatically appear in the list after 24 hours.

Countries complete

This is similar to what I presented in last week’s blog post. It only lists those members who have fully completed the country’s WHS. There’s one page with the Top 5-countries and one page with other difficult-to-complete countries.

Years complete

This lists the community members who have completed one of the first 10 years of the WH list. This is very difficult to achieve, I think it will be interesting to see whether more people can complete one or more of the early years in the future.

Civilizations complete

The focus here lies on ‘civilizations’ (or similar) that were spread across multiple countries and have a significant amount of connected sites. Members that are strong in a particular region can stand out in one of these categories.

Most intrepid travellers

This page groups queries where particular travel stamina is shown, such as visits to WHS in the most different countries, WHS in danger and WHS on Uninhabited Islands.

Best by Continent

The page shows the members who scored the highest on WHS in a particular 'continent'. The UNESCO WH definition, called 'Region' is used which splits the world into 5 continents.

Best positioned for the next WHC

This is a query that I often use myself, and I think it is of interest to those who proactively visit TWHS that are close to an inscription. Based on our prognosis of which sites will be nominated in the coming 3 years, the page shows how high your potential score will be based on your TWHS ‘ticks’.

Are there additional statistics you’d like to see that are related to the achievements of community members?

Els - 11 February 2024

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jonathanfr 12 February 2024

I am in favor of having statistics according to categories (https://www.worldheritagesite.org/list/categories). Indeed, this would allow the community to know who are the best “specialists” in visiting caves, memory sites, volcanoes, etc.

It would also be interesting to have statistics according to certain connections of the following groups of connections: Timeline, Visiting conditions, WHS on Other Lists, World Heritage Process.


Christravelblog 12 February 2024

Nice stats! Seems I have to work on visiting more to get into one of the lists lol.


Can SARICA 11 February 2024

I just checked that there are only 20 countries that have 10 or more WHS and not listed in the stats. That would be great to have the stats for them as well. In addition, why do we only show “nearly there” for difficult countries? We may show them for all countries that have stats and we may increase the number to 2 missing instead of 1 missing site.

List:
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czechia
Denmark
Greece
Indonesia
Israel
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Rep. Of Korea
South Africa
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkiye


Jay T 11 February 2024

These are great stats -- thanks for compiling these!


Can SARICA 11 February 2024

Maybe all countries with >=10 WHS can be added under a separate heading.


Wojciech Fedoruk 11 February 2024

Very nice batch of stats! Is it possible to add one more in 'most interpid travellers' section? I mean most 'difficult' sites visited which would group travellers who visited the most WHS from, say, 200 (or bottom 20%) least visited WHS of this site.


Blog WH Travellers

Completing Countries

The reviews this week featured the beginning of a series of updates on the Ethiopian WHS by Wojciech Fedoruk. After finishing a comprehensive trip covering 8 WHS in 15 days, in addition to an earlier trip where he visited 3, he is now the first on this website to have ‘completed’ Ethiopia. The photo below shows what he found at the Lower Valley of the Awash.

Completing Countries can be a satisfying subgoal in the WHS quest, and it doesn’t necessarily belong only to those with high total scores. In this post, I will present a closer look at this based on the ‘ticks’ logged by our community members.

Looking at the countries with at least 10 WHS, I was able to draw the following conclusions:

The easiest countries to complete

The easiest ones are the relatively small European countries where all WHS lie within their European territory:

  • Austria: 65 persons
  • Belgium: 61
  • Croatia: 58
  • Switzerland: 56
  • Bulgaria: 56
  • Israel: 47
  • Czechia: 37
  • Sweden: 35
  • Poland: 31
  • Germany: 30

Netherlands by contrast has only 14 people who have completed it, due to the presence of Willemstad on Curacao on their List.

Of the countries with the highest number of WHS, Italy has been completed by 11 members, China by 4 and Spain by 5.

First and only ones to complete

Some countries have only been completed by one person:

Countries that have not been completed yet

Countries with large territories AND/OR multiple overseas sites prove to be the hardest to complete. So the following countries have not been completed by anyone:

  • France (see map above, has 5 overseas territories on its list, spread across the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific and the sub-Antarctic)
  • India (it takes a lot of stamina; the Himalayan sites prove to be the most difficult)
  • UK (Thomas and Luis Filipe are on 32/33, both miss Henderson Island)
  • Russia (Ivan and Martina are best on 28/31, missing out on the expensive Wrangel Island, the remote Uvs Nuur and the recently added Kazan Observatories)
  • Australia (highest scorers are on 18/20, missing out on the sub-Antarctic sites of Macquarie and Heard & McDonald)

The very difficult other ones

Among the countries with 5 or more WHS (and less than 10), the following stand out for their complexity. No one has completed them:

And probably the most difficult of them all to finish: the Democratic Republic of Congo. The highest-scoring community members have only visited 2 out of the country’s 5 WHS.

Countries that are nowadays impossible to fully cover such as Syria and Mali have been completed by multiple people during the pre-war periods.

Do you aim to Complete Countries on your WHS travels?

Els - 4 February 2024

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Els Slots 15 February 2024

Well done, Kurt! You have deserved your spot in the Hall of Fame


Kurt Lauer 12 February 2024

Just finished a trip to India, and was able to complete all the sites (actually visited a few on two previous visits). I even revised the trip while there to make sure I visited the two new sites that were put on the list while I was there.

I also visited a few TWHS in India, as well as most of the newly TWHS in Bangladesh. Some of these have no reviews, so I'll write something up when I return home next week. Currently in Saudi Arabia - short stop over, but enough time to go to the WHS near Riyadh tomorrow.


Jay T 5 February 2024

I missed all the commentary yesterday, but I do have goals to complete some countries, particularly the USA and Canada. Someday I hope to finally get to Papahānaumokuākea.

In the meantime, I have a side goal like Svein to complete years, though I don't have any years as close to completion as he does. 1978 remains the one I'm most focused on finishing first, although I missed my opportunity to get out to Nahanni last summer thanks to wildfires and a move.


Michael Ayers 5 February 2024

In 2006/8 I had completed South Africa and Argentina. But since my history of tracking and visiting T-list sites is very deficient compared to most of you, that's no longer the case, as both countries have added three sites, unvisited by me, since then. For that reason, I haven't really put much thought into completing countries recently. My only significant completed country at the moment is Sri Lanka, which is fairly easy to do...


Can Sarica 4 February 2024

Completing the USA, Canada, and Mexico is a remarkable accomplishment by Zoe, deserving a standing ovation. Living in Toronto for four years, I consistently grapple with the decision: "Is it worth spending $1000 on flights, car rental, and a ten-hour drive for just one WHS visit?" Despite my best efforts, I've explored 26 out of 85 WHS in these countries in four years, anticipating that the remaining 59 may take another five years or more to complete.


Clyde 4 February 2024

If possible I aim to complete a whole country, or at least thoroughly cover a whole region if possible to the focus on a different region on a revisit. New inscriptions make such completions temporary, ex. in my case South Korea and Turkey.


Meltwaterfalls 4 February 2024

Dating back to my earliest travels I have attempted to try to complete a country but have quickly discovered it is a bit of a Sisyphean task (though a rather enjoyable one).

I set out with plans to cover all of Tunisia and South Korea when I visited them but realised that having an extra day in some city or other was probably of more interest to me than seeing some bird habitats out of season, especially as I don't have a particular interest in birds anyway. So I left them off with the idea that I have a suitable reason to come back in the future, in both cases extra sites were added after I visited so even if I had dragged myself to some wetlands I still wouldn't have them completed today, a useful reminder that my aim here is primarliy to travel to enjoy myself and have new experiences.

I think I have "completed" Belgium, Czech Republic and "mainland" Netherlands, Britain, at least 3 times each before another site has been added to draw me back to increasingly obscure and dare I say underwhelming world heritage site.

I'm never going to be in the upper reaches of site visits in comparison to others here and to be honest that has never really been my objective.

So having a little reason to go back and explore a new corner of a country I enjoy being in isn't the worst way to spend my leisure time, even if the destination may not be particularly interesting.


Els Slots 4 February 2024

Good perspective, Svein! The late, great Iain Jackson still is the only person to have 1978 (the first year!) complete.


Svein Elias 4 February 2024

Completing countries will always be temporary so I tend to look at completing years. Thats more final, but I haven't finished one yet.
My best year is 1984 with 22 sites and I have managed 16 which is 73% and my worst is 2016 with 5 of 21, only 24%.
I guess there are lots of people doing better!


Liam 4 February 2024

Surely lots of people have completed Holy See, Luxembourg, Cyprus & Malta? These are left as the only countries I have completed - though once I could have added Syria, Jordan, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to that list (damn you Struve!)


Nan 4 February 2024

When going to a country I normally aim for completion if possible.

Key bit working against completion are new inscriptions. With tentative sites it's very hard to tell if they make the cut and are worth the effort. Or what precisely will be inscribed. Worse yet are not yet nominated ones.

Being complete for Germany requires nearly annual travel as we keep adding at best mediocre and mostly unheard of sites.

Re France, even if you were to dish out the money for the remote islands, they keep adding more, so it's pointless imho.


Els Slots 4 February 2024

It would be nice to have this as a feature on the country pages and countries overview list. But the query is a bit difficult, let me try to make it work.


Els Slots 4 February 2024

Iran 4
Japan 1
Peru 3
Turkey 11
Greece 10


Els Slots 4 February 2024

Another reason Germany has so many (in addition to many members living there or close) is that it has no hard-to-reach WHS. And there are no overseas territories.


Els Slots 4 February 2024

It's 16 for South Korea, Kyle.
And let me have a look how many have both Korea's ....> it's 4!


Wojciech Fedoruk 4 February 2024

Interesting data. High count of Germany indicates that there are many completionists here. What about other countries with multiple WHS, such as Japan, Iran or Peru?


Kyle Magnuson 4 February 2024

Just out of curiosity how much people have completed Korea?


Blog Connections

Gorilla (T)WHS

We’ve had the connection Gorilla habitat for a long time, but my recent visit to those at Bai Hokou (C.A.R.) got me thinking we’re missing something there. A fair number of WHS are inhabited by gorillas, but at only a limited amount of places you can actually as a tourist go and see them. They need to have ‘habituated’ groups, which are (extended) families trained to tolerate human presence. The habituation is a very time-consuming process, taking up to 10 years. And when the dominant silverback that you had singled out for this purpose suddenly dies, it all was for nothing as his family group will disintegrate. The habituated gorillas live wild but their location is tracked daily by staff. They also often are the subject of scientific studies.

Gorillas come in 4 ‘types’: they’re split into two main species, Eastern Gorilla and Western Gorilla, and each of those is made up of two subspecies. I’ve tried to make an inventory of at which WHS and TWHS you can visit them:

Eastern Gorilla

Eastern Gorillas live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. The species is subdivided into mountain gorillas and eastern lowland gorillas.

Mountain Gorillas

This subspecies has the lowest number of remaining individuals (ca. 1,000) but they are well in the public eye, not critically endangered anymore and are relatively easy to visit. Photo 1 shows a mountain gorilla silverback at Virunga.

  • Bwindi (Uganda) is probably the main location, with 9 habituated families and a cost of 700 USD per visit.
  • Virunga (DRC) has 10 of them, but the park is unfortunately closed at the moment and often right in the zone of conflict.
  • The nearby TWHS of Mgahinga (Uganda) has 1 habituated group. 

Volcanoes NP (Rwanda) has 12 habituated families (and the most expensive ones at 1500 USD a visit), but it’s not on Rwanda’s T List.

Eastern Lowland Gorillas

The main location here is Kahuzi-Biega (DRC). Unlike other WHS in the DRC, this park is almost always accessible as it lies near the Rwanda border. About 250 individuals live in the park. Reports vary between 2 and 5 considering the number of habituated groups. A trek to see them costs 400 USD.

Virunga has eastern lowland gorillas as well, but only 7 individuals are said to remain and they are not habituated.

Western Gorilla

Western Gorillas are much more numerous than their eastern counterparts. Especially after the incredible story broke a few years ago “that around 125,000 previously unreported gorillas had been found living in the swamp forests of Lake Tele Community Reserve”. However, there are few locations where they are habituated to human visitors. They are still critically endangered, mainly due to their susceptibility to disease (ebola) and lack of overall protection. The species is subdivided into Western Lowland Gorillas and Cross River Gorillas.

Western Lowland Gorillas

  • A prime location is Sangha Trinational: Dzangha Ndoki (C.A.R.) has one habituated group left and is working on a second, while Nouabele Ndoki (Congo) has four. In both parks, gorillas are sometimes also seen visiting the bai's (forest clearings).
  • Odzala WHS (Congo) has two groups habituated for tourists (and one for scientists).
  • Loango TWHS (Gabon) has one habituated group.
  • Moukalaba-Doudou TWHS (also Gabon) does as well.

There seem to be no habituated groups among the gorillas at Dja Faunal Reserve (Cameroon) and Ivindo (Gabon), although the latter’s Langoue Baï is regularly frequented by wild gorillas and they can be observed from a viewing platform. Lopé-Okanda (Gabon) has had a habituation program but it seems to have been stopped according to some sources while other tour operators still offer it.

Photo 3 shows a young female western lowland gorilla in the Bai Hokou area of Dzangha Ndoki.

Cross River Gorillas

This subspecies is limited to a very small area, the Cameroon-Nigeria border region at the headwaters of the Cross River. There are no WHS in this area. The transboundary TWHS Cross River (CRIKOT) covers the gorillas, but there are no habituated groups.

Does it harm or benefit the Gorillas?

The researcher that I spoke to at Bai Hokou (part of Sangha Trinational) regarded the gorilla habituation program there as a positive thing: it raises awareness for the conservation of gorillas (as visitors will talk about it when they're home), it provides funds for conservation and research, and jobs for the local community. The programs also may deter poachers. The main cons are that it may stress out the gorillas (especially at the beginning of their habituation they flee from humans) and that humans can transfer diseases to them. However, there seems to be no widespread opposition to the practice and the income from the often expensive trekking permits for a high percentage goes back to conservation (numbers around 75% have been stated).

Did you see wild gorillas in other places? Have you ever had a chance encounter with a wild gorilla outside of a habituated group?

Els - 28 January 2024

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Blog WHS Visits

WHS #886: Sangha!

These natural clearings filled with wildlife from the Congo Basin are the holy grail among mammal watchers. For me, Dzanga Ndoki (the Central African Republic part of this transnational site) was to be a splurge visit in March 2020 – but it became my Covid travel disaster. After the park reopened, I still wanted to go but the prices rose beyond belief. Fortunately, I found a group tour operator wanting to do it for much less by entering overland from Cameroon.

This site also had been unreviewed so far on this website. Sangha Trinational WHS consists of 3 parks, of which the one in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) surprisingly is the best equipped to receive visitors. Lobéké in Cameroon is rundown, while Nouabalé-Ndoki in Congo is temporarily closed and rumours have it that they want to turn it into a luxury destination. I wrote a Getting There topic on the Forum to elaborate on the practicalities of visiting the park in the C.A.R. This review further deals with what you can expect there.

Our first day was spent at Dzanga Bai, the most famous forest clearing, known as ‘the Serengeti of the Forest’. It’s already a fine place to get to, starting with a drive through the forest of about 45 minutes and then an easy hike of the same duration. The latter includes a foot crossing of some flooded areas, where the water reaches just below the knee. Especially on the way back the cool water provided a welcome respite from the heat.

After walking through the forest for a while, you suddenly begin to see the sky again: that’s where the Dzanga Bai starts. A comfortable viewing platform (shaded, with chairs, and we brought drinks and lunch) provides the classic overview of this forest clearing. The Bai is the size of several football fields. There were already some 80 forest elephants present when we arrived and also a small group of forest buffalo. Other forest animals come here too, but they are shy and seem to get bullied by the elephants. They also chased the buffaloes away after a while.

What follows is hours of silent observation of the coming and going of the elephants. They take mud baths, socialize and some rowdy young guys have a few trunk fights. In this season (January) there were also many babies and large bulls present. We lasted 4 hours and it was almost a meditative experience.

During the second day in the park, we drove even further inside on a dirt road surrounded by very high trees. It ends at Bai Hokou, another ‘bai’ that is visited by forest animals but not in the same numbers as Dzanga Bai. Here lies the ranger and research station for the park’s western lowland gorillas. Until last year they had 3 habituated gorilla groups here, but within a month two of the silverbacks died (of natural causes). So we went to visit the remaining family of Makumba, a 40-year-old male with two wives and four kids. Before the visit, we had to do a rapid Covid test at the park office to prevent we would transmit the disease to the animals.

After having done mountain gorilla treks in Bwindi and Virunga before, I was curious to see how the lowland gorillas would differ. The flat terrain surely makes the hike easier, but it’s a humid area and you only walk on animal trails so there are a lot of roots and branches along the way. I was in the second ‘batch’ of visitors of my tour group (any group larger than four would have a hard time getting a view), so the trackers already found the gorillas and we reached them after two hours of hiking. They continued to walk away from us at first and were constantly turning their backs to us - we had to follow them crawling through the bushes. Based on this experience I’d say the mountain gorillas are harder to reach but easier to see once you have arrived. The allowed one hour at the gorillas of Bai Hokou was hard work, but finally, two of them settled down to eat and we could get good pictures from about 3m away. Their looks are slightly different from the mountain gorilla, with a streak of red-brownish hair on their forehead and altogether a different facial build. As they live in smaller family groups, you also see fewer individuals during your visit.

Sangha truly stands out because of:

  • How ‘wild’ it is - it's almost untouched by human interference, where national parks in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa often are 'engineered' nowadays, with species being reintroduced, their numbers regulated, fences built, waterholes dug out, hardly a lion to be seen without a collar. Especially Dzanga Bai is just what it has always been, with only a viewing platform for scientists and tourists to observe. We also saw a wild, unhabituated gorilla cross the road on the way to Bai Hokou.
  • The opportunity to see the forest mammal species of the Congo Basin. They all (elephants, buffaloes, gorillas) are a bit smaller in size than similar species elsewhere. They are well adapted to living in the dense forest and the narrow spaces that come with it. Even the humans are smaller here! The areas around the park are inhabited by the Ba’ka people, and they also are employed as gorilla trackers. Just following them through the bush you come to admire their agility and with their small stature they avoid getting all the branches in their faces as clumsier and taller tourists get.

It sure was worth the 4-year wait and the 3 full days of travel to get to Dzanga Ndoki. The visit made my appetite for other WHS in the Congo Basin like Odzala and Ivindo grow even stronger.

Els - 21 January 2024

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Comments

Carlo Sarion 21 January 2024

Thanks Els for giving us an account of the Sangha Trinational WHS, and a glimpse of this part of the Congo Basin. Surely this will motivate others to explore the area, although I do hope that it remains almost untouched by human interference.


Kyle Magnuson 21 January 2024

This really looks like a special experience. Congrats on making it happen!


Blog Connections

Foreigner Pricing Analysis

The topic of foreigner pricing (“WHS where differential pricing is practiced between local and foreign visitors”, a.k.a. dual pricing) has already been discussed a few times on this website. But with 117 entries in the connection (and I am sure there are many more), it seems to be a common and accepted practice globally. So in this post, I’d like to draw a few conclusions from the data we have gathered. It also gives an insight into the pricing of WHS overall, as we managed to collect exact and fairly recent entry fees of almost 10% of all WHS.

Wealthy countries practicing foreigner pricing

Despite the practice being discriminatory and thus morally wrong, in the earlier discussions some people gave understanding to the poorest countries for introducing higher prices for foreigners (or maybe discounts for locals). Cambodia and Angkor is the classical example here. But are there also wealthier countries that do it? I used the UN’s country classification, which ranks countries from High Income to Low Income, with Upper Middle Income and Lower Middle Income in between, to verify this. 

It turned out that, sporadically, a few High Income countries use it: on the list are examples from Chile (for Easter Island), Netherlands (or actually Curacao, which is self-governing but still considered High Income), and Seychelles.

More routine use of this pricing strategy is seen among the following Upper Middle Income countries: Argentina, Botswana, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malaysia, Namibia, and Thailand. Peru, Russia and South Africa seem to do it incidentally.

The rest, 66%, stems from Lower Middle Income and Low Income countries.

The ones splitting the world into 3 groups

Some countries go even further than distinguishing between locals and foreigners, by introducing a tier in the middle for “Neighbours” or considering them as local. India sometimes extends the domestic rates to include people from the SAARC and BIMSTEC countries (including Upper Middle Income Thailand), and at other locations (such as the Taj Mahal) it has engineered a price in the middle for them. Honduras does so for Central Americans, while El Salvadoreans see their neighbours as equals and ask them for the domestic fee.

Are foreigners being exploited?

Are the foreigners paying a fair price for the WHS, or are they the golden geese of the tourism industry? To test this, I’ve taken a benchmark of 10 USD, which seemed fair to me for sites of average quality that take 1 to 2 hours to visit*. From the 117 WHS in scope, we see that 12 ask for slightly more (11-15 USD) and 27 ask for significantly more than 10 USD, as shown in the graphic below:

Now I can understand a fee of 20-50 USD for a top WHS (Angkor, Machu Picchu) that also requires at least a full day to explore. Imagine what a ticket to a concert or a sports match costs (for reference, a Center Court seat at Wimbledon costs the equivalent of 115 USD on day one and 350 USD at the finals). But 25 USD for Prambanan or Anuradhapura, or 33 USD for Vallée de Mai? Or 100 USD for Lalibela?

Among all the arguments pro and con foreigner pricing, I think asking for exorbitant fees will always bite countries in the tail as people just choose to go somewhere else (it’s as much a disqualifier as having complex visa procedures).

* Another benchmark that I often use during my travels is the cost of a meal in a decent restaurant. As an entrance fee to a WHS, I usually find 50% of the cost of a meal as reasonable, and a tip to a guide for example 100% (depending on what he/she did of course).

The biggest differences

Leaving apart the 13 sites where the locals enter for free and the foreigners have to pay, it is not uncommon to see foreigners being asked to pay 15-20 times more than local visitors. The biggest differences are in Pakistan, where the province of Sindh has the policy of pricing a foreigner ticket for its WHS of Makli and Moenjodaro 60 times higher than a domestic ticket (other Pakistani provinces aren’t that extreme). Sri Lanka also uses the multiplier of 60, for Sigiriya for example.

Do you have additional examples of foreigner pricing to add to this Connection?

Els - 14 January 2024

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Comments

Can SARICA 16 January 2024

The new Hagia Sophia ticket fee, 25 euro, is valid for both local and foreign tourists. If you are a Muslim, you can enter downstairs to pray for free. To visit upstairs, everyone should pay 25 euro.

Foreign ticketing policy is valid for all WHSs in Turkey. Locals buy a year-long Museum Card for just 2 USD and can enter any WHS plus hundreds of other museums for an unlimited time in a year. Foreigners mostly need to pay 5-30 USD ticket price for WHSs. Museum card that is valid for only Istanbul museums for 5 days is 75 USD.


Kyle Magnuson 16 January 2024

Hagia Sophia will now be 25 Euros for foreign tourists.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2024/01/15/hagia-sophia-imposes-entrance-fee-for-foreign-tourists/


Shandos 15 January 2024

In addition to the above comments regarding Europe... I first visited Europe when I was 21, on a tight budget. It was very frustrating that I had to pay full price to many sites, missing out on the youth prices only available to EU citizens - who hadn't had to pay thousands of dollars on flights just to get there!

Generally I don't mind paying extra as a foreigner, though of course there are some sites that take this a little far, such as you've already pointed out in Sri Lanka.


Assif 14 January 2024

It is similar in state run sites in Italy. Children until 18 are free, regardless of their nationality, but seniors from the EU enjoy a discount whereas foreigners have to pay the full fee.


Liam 14 January 2024

I partially noted this in Greece last year. Entry to government-run sites is free to EU citizens under the age of 25, whereas non-EU citizens over the age of 5 have to pay. It was a bit of a surprise as the last time I'd visited Greece a) I didn't have kids, and b) I was an EU citizen...

Not sure if this happens elsewhere in Europe - it certainly doesn't in Cyprus.


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