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| Tidal flats in Boseong County, South Jeolla Province, in this undated photo. Courtesy of the Cultural Heritage Administration |
By Park Ji-won
The country's tidal flats received a "deferral" in a preliminary evaluation process to determine potential sites that could be registered on UNESCO World Heritage Sites list, Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) announced in a press release Tuesday, pledging that it will push for their listing in the future.
The administration said the recommendation came from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an advisory group for UNESCO. A deferral is the third-lowest in a four-tier system that includes "inscribe," "refer," "defer" and "not to inscribe." If selected, it means the site's nomination will require a more in-depth assessment or substantial revisions for later consideration.
An official of the CHA said the application may have failed to meet some criteria, such as "representing major stages of the earth's history" and "significant ongoing ecological and biological processes," as it did not include broader areas where migratory birds pass.
"We submitted the application arguing that tidal flats meet criteria 8, 9 and 10 of the definition of outstanding universal value (OUV). But it failed to meet criteria 8 and 9. We submitted four tidal flat sites for review, but failed to include key areas that represent biological diversity. Some tidal flat sites in different regions where migratory birds pass were not included," the CHA official said.
"However, the advisory group acknowledged the possibility that our sites could provide a natural habitat for animal species facing extinction, and we may push for highlighting and expanding those areas in the next review."
The country had been pushing for the tidal flats' inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage Site list, with the final review scheduled for the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee to be held July 16 to 31.
The CHA had applied for the preliminary review of four tidal flat sites across the country in January 2019: Seocheon in South Chungcheong Province, Gochang in North Jeolla Province, and Sinan and Boseong-Suncheon in South Jeolla Province. Those sites had been examined by the IUCN as of April 2020, according to the release.
Even though it is not required, receiving a positive recommendation from the committee's preliminary review would have raised the possibility of its inclusion on the UNESCO list, according to insiders.
The administration is planning to push for the listing in the future, as there have been cases of World Heritage Site designations even after receiving a "defer" recommendation from the IUCN. In July 2019, UNESCO added the Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies to its list, after their nomination received an initial "deferal" recommendation. It had taken about three years after the first review for the sites to receive UNESCO World Heritage status. The 2020 committee meeting was postponed to this year due to the pandemic.
"We haven't decided how to deal with the situation after receiving the deferral recommendation, as it was made just two days ago, but we will closely discuss various possibilities with related government organizations ― for example, whether to proceed with the current application or just retract the bid and push for it at a later date."
