Protected sites in the Alps with an internationally awarded natural or cultural designation as of 1 January 2015 - an overview

Abstract

The former Working Group UNESCO World Heritage of the Alpine Convention was tasked by the Alpine Conference to check the possibility of applying other instruments and international programmes to enhance the awareness about sites in the Alps. Following this mandate, as of 1 January 2015, 1345 internationally designated sites, divided into 12 categories, of cultural and natural heritage in the Alps could be identified and compiled in a list. The results were analysed according to the following topics: 1) percentage of Alpine sites within the global, total scope of application of the designations (programmes and conventions), 2) agencies involved (globally and regionally active organizations), 3) number of the culture / nature sites and 4) multiple designations of an individual site. Following an intensive revision (which led to a substantial enlargement of the list, as the initial list included 98 sites before it was augmented 14-fold), the list has been made available for the recently created WG Sustainable Tourism of the Alpine Convention as a basis of its work.