WEDNESDAY, 1 DECEMBER 1999: UNESCO's World Heritage Committee announced today in Morocco that Robben Island, the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park and the fossil hominid sites at Sterkfontein are now World Heritage Sites.

The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa welcomed the news of South Africa's first World Heritage sites.

"The international recognition of these sites comes precisely at a time when we are positioning ourselves as a global player in tourism.

"In January next year we will be launching the biggest international marketing campaign in Satour's 50 year history and this recognition will help us to market our country as a world-class tourist destination," he said.

But he added that World Heritage recognition was not only important for tourism but "it also contributes immensely to the building of the new South African nation. It serves to bolster our pride in ourselves and in the wondrous country in which we live".

The World Heritage Convention of UNESCO, established in 1972, recognises World Heritage Sites as areas of outstanding universal value.

This list includes some of the most famous sites in the world: from the Acropolis in Greece, the Pyramids in Egypt, Great Zimbabwe, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in India to the Galapagos Islands, the Grand Canyon in the United States and the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.

World Heritage status is important because it enhances the value of a site as a tourist destination while ensuring that it is protected for future generations. UNESCO thus highlights the need to combine conservation with sustainable use. Every government nomination has to give details of how a site will be legally protected and provide a management plan for its conservation.

The Convention therefore complements heritage conservation programmes for the protection and management of a site at a national level.

The three South African sites inscripted are:

• The fossil hominid sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai and environs (west of Johannesburg) are a complex of palaeo-anthropological sites that contain some of the most valuable evidence about the origins of modern humans - from the 2,5-million-year-old skull of Mrs Ples to the 3,3-million-year-old set of bones of Little Foot and other remains. The discovery of these hominoid fossils underpins the claim the Africa is the origin of humankind as we know it today.
• The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park is a natural site of five interlinked ecosystems in an area of almost unrivalled natural diversity and beauty. It is one of the largest protected wildlife areas in South Africa and the largest estuarine system in Africa. Its inscription is a validation of the decision not to allow mining the area, but to use this spectacular wetland park as one of the anchors of an integrated Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative. With our neighbours in Swaziland and Mozambique we are turning this area of poverty and underdevelopment into one of the high-yield international tourist destinations in our country. Government has committed R32 million for St Lucia's consolidation and redevelopment.
• The last site, Robben Island, has come to symbolise the triumph of the human spirit over hardship and adversity. Immortalised by former president Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom, this island was a place of banishment and imprisonment for the past 350 years of our history. Its inscription by the World Heritage Convention is as a global icon of human rights and reconciliation.

A preliminary list for additional World Heritage Sites has been drawn up the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism after consultations with provincial and other stakeholders. South Africa has applied that the Drakensberg-Maluti range and the Cape Floristic Region go forward as nominations next year. A further seven natural sites, three cultural landscapes and six cultural sites have also been designated as possible nominations once they match the standards and expectations of a World Heritage Site.