SEOUL: The World War II D-Day landing beaches in northern France and the iconic Mount Olympus in Greece were among the sites added to the World Heritage List as a UN committee reviewed dozens of nominations at a meeting in South Korea on Sunday.The UNESCO committee meeting in Busan until Wednesday also inscribed the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara and South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations and the country’s first addition to the World Heritage List.The French designation includes the five Normandy landing beaches – Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juneau – where more than 150,000 Allied troops came ashore on June 6, 1944, along with the Pointe du Hoc assault site, which was the center of the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.
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The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which evaluates submissions to the Heritage Committee, said the sites contained extensive remains ranging from German fortifications and bomb-scarred landscapes to Allied port structures and sunken ships, an “event widely considered to have enabled the return of freedom and ushered in a lasting peace on the European continent.”The World Heritage inscription of Mount Olympus, the mythological home of the 12 Olympian gods, rewarded Greece’s 12-year effort to gain recognition for its highest mountain as a mixed cultural and natural heritage site. Rising 2,918 meters from a base near sea level, this mountain is considered to be the throne of Zeus, the king of the gods, and it also harbors rich biodiversity.The designated Japanese sites in the western prefecture of Nara cover 19 archaeological sites in the 6th to 8th century capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, where Japan established its first centralized state based on Chinese systems. These sites preserve the largely buried remains of the imperial palaces, government offices, Buddhist temples, and tombs of the capitals that influenced the later capitals of Nara and Kyoto.South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo site consists of wetlands, floodplains and savannas shaped by seasonal rainfall and flood dynamics, with an estimated 6 million white-eared kob, tiang and Mongalla gazelles moving across the landscape in response to changing environmental conditions. According to UNESCO, it also provides habitat for elephants, lions, cheetahs and other wildlife, while supporting various ethnic communities that have made a living from animal husbandry, farming and fishing for centuries.