A Framework for Selecting Sites for the Tentative List
To complement the procedure for preparing the Tentative List, a decision-making framework for preparing the Tentative List is suggested. This is based on the rationale underlying the Convention’s requirement for “outstanding universal value” and attempts to help assess the relative significance of a site. Four levels of significance can be used when assessing the importance of a natural site for inclusion on the Tentative List:
- International Significance: Natural landscapes or features that are clearly unique and are not duplicated or surpassed anywhere in the world.
- Regional Significance: Natural landscapes or features that are of limited distribution or the best examples of a feature in a biogeographic region.
- National Significance: Natural landscapes or features that are of limited distribution or are the best examples of a feature within a country.
- Provincial Significance: Natural landscapes or features that are of limited distribution at a provincial level or are the best examples of a feature in a province, state or territory.
Sites to include on the revised Tentative List should only be those that are considered significant at the international level. The rationale for determining the level of significance that a site meets can be gauged by reviewing one primary and four secondary quality indicators:
- Distinctiveness: Does the site contain species/ habitats/physical features not duplicated elsewhere? For example, there is no other Precambrian fossil site on earth that matches the Burgess Shales, which is part of the justification for the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks WHS. This indicator is the primary one for identification of potential World Heritage Sites and is the main determinant of “outstanding universal value.” Should a Tentative List candidate be advanced to the nomination stage, a more rigorous comparative analysis of this key indicator would be required.
Four secondary indicators also can assist in determining the level of significance and help to determine whether a site would be a solid candidate at this time:
- Integrity: Does the site function as a reasonably self-contained unit? Do the boundaries encompass all the key elements of the area’s natural values? This is a key feature for biologically focussed areas, though it is recognized that no protected area has perfectly adequate boundaries. Nevertheless, the “St. Elias complex” (Kluane / Wrangell - St.Elias / Glacier Bay / Tashenshini - Alsek WHS) with 10 million ha is one site, which does encompass most all of the main natural values of the region.
- Naturalness: To what extent has the site been affected by human activities? Although sustainable human use is consistent with World Heritage status, natural processes should be a dominant consideration when reviewing which criterion applies. Certainly the Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada site is a good example of a landscape where nature dominates and where human impact has been minimal.
- Dependency: How critical is the site for key species and/or the understanding of geological history and/or ecosystems? Are there other alternative habitats or places that can also “tell the story”? For sites nominated under natural criterion N (iv) [new criteria (x)] - and to a lesser degree to N (i) [now criterion (viii)] and N (ii) [now criterion (viii)] this is an important indicator. The whooping crane nesting ground in Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada serves as an example.
- Diversity: What diversity of species, habitat types and natural features (i.e., geodiversity) does a site contain? Although a site can be focussed on one main feature such as the Devonian fossils in Miguasha, a site that displays a combination of heritage values (including historical and cultural ones) would be an especially strong candidate.
Except for “distinctiveness”, none of the above quality indicators would be a determinant, but, when viewed together, they provide a frame of reference for judging the approximate level of significance of a candidate site. The next phase in preparing this report will use this framework in examining sites that would be suitable for Canada’s revised Tentative List.