Context and objectives
Development of a web demonstration concerning the land use change during the past 10 years.
According to the rules of the World Heritage Convention, each country shall provide, when proposing a site for nomination, precise information indicating the boundary of the site as well as the boundary of the ‘buffer zone’ surrounding the site. The Convention also requests that both of these areas (site-boundary and site-buffer-zone) should be protected by an appropriate legislation.
Unfortunately developing countries do not have accurate maps available. This makes that sometimes the provision of the site-boundaries information is either missing or is of very poor quality.
One important aspect of maps is that adequate maps of the sites are a basic tool for any conservation activity: the first main item to be aware off is the exact location of the site that needs to be protected! In this sense the creation of adequate cartography for World Heritage sites becomes in addition, a strong capacity building activity through which the less developed countries learn to use cartographic information in the development of site-management-plans.