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Everglades, Atsinanana on UNESCO list

01 August 2010 04:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has added two sites to its list of at-risk world heritage locations, APA reports quoting official website of Press Tv.

Florida’s Everglades National Park and Madagascar’s Atsinanana tropical rainforest were added to the list due to natural complications and human intervention.

During a meeting in Brazil, the World Heritage Committee said that the Everglades had been announced as an endangered world heritage site upon the request of the US government due to the "serious and continuing degradation of its aquatic ecosystem."

Development in the Everglades was said to have caused water flow to fall by 60% in the wetland. The pollution level is also killing marine life.

According to UNESCO, the decreasing water flow and the high level of pollution were caused by agricultural and urban development.

This is the second time that the wetland has been announced as an endangered site. It was first registered on the same list from 1993 to 2007 after being devastated by Hurricane Andrew.

"We commend the USA’s request to re-inscribe the site on the danger list, and its plans for major infrastructure overhaul to restore the Everglades’s fragile wetland ecosystem," Mariam Kenza Ali of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Said.

Madagascar rainforests are also threatened by illegal logging and poaching following last year’s military coup, BBC reported.

The Atsinanana rainforests, located within six national parks in the east of the island, are said to have been threatening the unique species existing there, especially primates and lemurs.

"In adding this site to the danger list, we are calling for international action to halt illegal logging and to also ensure that no illegally logged precious woods from Madagascar enter national markets," head of World Heritage at the IUCN Tim Badman said.