IUCN World Heritage Outlook

IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3 now out

IUCN has issued the third IUCN World Heritage Outlook on 2 December 2020. It shows that climate change is now the top threat to natural World Heritage sites. Read more

Watch the recorded webinar marking the launch of the IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3.

The IUCN World Heritage Outlook is the first global assessment of natural World Heritage, and our flagship for assessing all natural World Heritage sites. It is composed of a website and a three-yearly global report. Launched in 2014 and with two subsequent reports in 2017 and 2020, it is the first global assessment of natural World Heritage and the first to recognise conservation success in the world’s most iconic places. Up to the IUCN Outlook, only about half of the listed sites have been regularly monitored through the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. With three sets of data over a six-year period now available, the IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3 provides an opportunity to identify evolving trends in the global status of natural World Heritage.

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Photo: IUCN / World Heritage Programme

The IUCN World Heritage Outlook provides Conservation Outlook Assessments for all natural World Heritage sites. These assessments indicate whether a natural World Heritage site is likely to conserve its values over time, based on a desk-based assessment of:

The current state and trend of values
The threats affecting those values
The effectiveness of protection and management

Conservation Outlook Assessments also compile additional information on benefits and possible projects related to a site.

Backed by WCPA expertise, IUCN has developed this tool to fill a knowledge gap on UNESCO natural World Heritage sites and track their state of conservation. It can serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of protected and conserved areas at a time when the international community seeks to measure progress towards global biodiversity targets and defines the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.