Paris, 11 July 2025. In the framework of the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, the Cuban delegation took part in a panel organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), dedicated to discussing the potential of the Preliminary Assessment process for World Heritage nominations, which will become mandatory as of 2027.
Representing Cuba, Aylem Hernández Ávila, Deputy Director of the National Center for Protected Areas (CNAP) and Natural Focal Point to the 1972 Convention, presented Cuba’s experience in preparing the Preliminary Assessment request for the nomination of the Cuban Caribbean Reef System, currently under development as a potential natural World Heritage site.
During her intervention, Hernández Ávila emphasized that this process represented a genuine challenge for the national technical team, as it was a completely new methodology with no prior national experience:
“We faced a new process, with no precedent in the use of this methodology. The last Cuban nomination of a natural site took place over twenty years ago, so the current technical team had no previous experience of this kind,” she explained.
She noted that one of the main challenges was the serial nature of the proposal, composed of ten marine sites located in different regions of the country. This required deep coordination and analytical work to demonstrate their outstanding universal value and the common attributes that support the nomination.
Regarding the results of the process, Hernández Ávila stated that the expectations were fully met:
“The exchanges with the World Heritage Centre and IUCN helped us to clarify the most representative criteria of the outstanding universal value and to structure the nomination process into only two stages. The recommendations of the final assessment report were clear and very useful for advancing towards the preparation of the preliminary nomination dossier,” she affirmed.
Currently, a multidisciplinary team coordinated by CNAP —including geographers, marine biologists, geologists, site managers, and representatives of civil society— continues working intensively on the preparation of the nomination dossier. A recent workshop with all the involved actors helped refine technical details, aiming for the submission of the preliminary version of the dossier in September.
Cuba’s participation in this panel reaffirmed the country’s commitment to the sustainable management of natural heritage and its determination to contribute actively to the implementation of new tools that strengthen the protection of World Heritage in the face of climate change.