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As of mid-2000, there are 630 natural and human-made wonders like
these on UNESCO's
World Heritage List, places whose loss would impoverish humankind.
The sites are so significant that responsibility for their protection belongs not just to their host states, but
to the world. And it is up to the world to see they are preserved. That is the philosophy behind the World
Heritage Convention, an agreement signed more than 25 years ago that is today among the United
Nations' most successful initiatives. Sites in more than 115 countries have been accorded the recognition
and protection of World Heritage status, bringing them to the attention of the international community and
promoting their preservation in the face of ever-increasing population, pollution and commercial
development.
The 13 sites described here are Canada's contribution to this distinguished
list - a combination of national and provincial parks and historic
settings deemed by the World Heritage Committee to number among
the most significant sites on Earth. Thus Canada has representative
sites of the two categories used by UNESCO:
cultural and natural areas.
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