The World Heritage Committee (WHC) overlooking conservation of global heritage sites will convene its annual meeting next week in Durban, South Africa, the first time in the sub-Saharan Africa since 1972.

The 29th session of the WHC Meeting, under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), will decide on the inscription of new properties to go on the prestigious World Heritage List as well as policy and funding issues, South African officials said here on Tuesday.

An African World Heritage Fund is expected to be launched during the meeting to better preserve highly-endangered cultural and natural sites in Africa.

The fund would ensure those sites were well preserved and those already on the WHC list would not be de-listed, said Pallo Jordan, South Africa's Arts and Culture Minister.

The UNESCO approved the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (CCPWCNH) in 1972.

Its 178 member countries elect 21 representatives to form the WHC, which designates sites around the world with outstanding cultural values or unique natural beauty and inscribes them on the World Heritage List.

The list now incorporates 788 properties of "outstanding universal value." The African continent is home to 63 such sites, six of which in South Africa.

The ministry said while the African sites inscribed represented only seven percent of the list, they made up 43 percent of the List of World Heritage in Danger. Lack of regular investment in the conservation of the sites was blamed as a major reason.

An African Position Paper will also be tabled at the week-long meeting from July 10 to provide a 10-year action plan and recommendations designed to enhance the preservation and promotion of Africa's heritage.

Since ratifying the CCPWCNH in 1997, South Africa is already home to six world heritage sites and plans to put forward three new sites at this meeting, which include a meteorite impact site, and two additional areas forming the Fossil Hominid Sites, known as the Cradle of Humankind, Jordan said.

The Vredefort Dome in Free State Province was formed by a meteorite hitting the earth, thought to be the biggest meteorite strike yet known, and is regarded as valuable for scientific research.

Taung is where an early Hominid skull was discovered and the Makapans Valley is home to some of the earliest human settlements in South Africa.

Source: Xinhua