Delegates from Latin America and the Caribbean who are attending the ongoing 28th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee insisted that the organization should inscribe more sites of those regions into the World Heritage List.

Blanca Nino Norton, a representative of the International Council for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in Guatemala and adviser to the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and Sports, believed Latin America and the Caribbean should have more of their sites inscribed as world heritages as the regions not only have a long civilization, but also have unique natural landscape and rich biodiversity.

Maria Susana Pataro, a member of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and deputy head of the International Organization Department with the Foreign Ministry of Argentina, thought both Latin America and the Caribbean should work harder in applying for heritage listing so that more sites of those regions could be inscribed into the World Heritage List.

Edgardo Bermejo, cultural attache with the Mexican Embassy in Beijing, said Latin America boasted three civilizations of Aztec, Maya and Inca, but most of the art and cultural cream of these civilizations were destroyed in the wake of the discovery of the American Continent.

"I believe the architectural complexes of different styles erected in the American Continent during the colonial era are also of high cultural value and therefore should be included into the World Heritage List," said the Mexican attache to China.

Marcelo Schilling, Chilean ambassador to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, disclosed that his motherland had prepared a long list of sites for the World Heritage List.

There are now 754 sites in the world inscribed into the World Heritage List, of which, 107 are distributed in 29 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Participants to the 28th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC), held in Suzhou, a scenic city in east China's Jiangsu Province, would discuss 48 proposed additions to the current World Heritage List. The session will close on July 7.
 
(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2004)