Our Place - Our Responsibility

Elephants running freely and unthreatened in the new African
Transnational World Heritage site.
OUR PLACE wishes you a productive and
constructive 2013.
Unfortunately the year has started with a new stream of media
stories
about threats to World Heritage sites, both natural and
cultural.
Ivory poaching in parts of Southern Africa has reached levels
which are
severely threatening the sustainability -and in some cases the
very survival, of whole herds of Elephants and Rhinos as poachers
meet a growing Asian middle class demand for trinkets, ornaments
and "traditional medicines" made from these majestic animal's tusks
and horns. Marine ecology is becoming increasingly fragile and
there are continuing horror stories about unsustainable fishing
practices that threaten the world's ocean system.
Many of the world's cultural sites are continuing to be put at
risk from
population pressures but the armed conflicts in Syria and Mali are
putting the World Heritage sites in those countries under extra
threat.
The Director General of UNESCO Irina Bokova has
reminded the
various factions in those countries to honour The Hague
Convention of
1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in armed
conflict and we can only hope that her plea is heeded. Mali is of
particular concern as some of the rebel groups there are
deliberately destroying cultural sites as part of their campaign to
establish an oppressively conservative theocracy.
Most of us can only hope to help lessen these threats by
attempting to keep
the issues alive and in front of the world's citizens and decision
makers via
various media outlets. OUR PLACE believes that by increasing the
awareness of the consequence of unsustainable demands on fragile
natural resources and by highlighting the loss to the wider world
of on-site cultural destruction, there is the chance that we can
eventually influence and moderate the behaviour of those
involved.
OUR PLACE has photographed the World Heritage sites of Mali so
they can easily be seen and appreciated by our global audience.
http://ourplaceworldheritage.com/custom.cfm&action=country®ionid=5&site_country=MALI
This month we are posting a new photo gallery from the
Trans-national World Heritage site of Cameroon /Central
African Republic/ Congo
which includes images that show the beauty of elephants living in
a relatively protected environment. If people become aware of a
place, then they can begin to care for that place.
As always, we appreciate your feedback and comments as we work
to celebrate
and protect Our Place on Our Planet.
Geoff Steven
CEO
Our Place Global