Quiet paradise of an unstable country, the Bijagó archipelago is a postcard of Guinea Bissau. See or review SIC’s special report on the islands that were now elevated to Natural World Heritage, becoming in the first site of the African country to join the UNESCO list.
The Bijagó islands in Guinea-Bissau were elevated to natural world heritage, becoming in the first site of the African country to join the UNESCO list, the United Nations for Education, Science and Culture.
The decision was announced this week in Paris, France, during the 47th meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which took place until the 16th, at the organization’s headquarters in the French capital.
This is “a historical achievement” for Guinea-Bissau, with the islands considered a natural treasure recognized with world status.
Registration in the World Heritage Sites list comes over a decade after the first candidacy rejected by UNESCO.
The Bijagó Archipelago, on the western coast of Africa, is a part of the Guinea-Bissau marine and coastal territory, made up of 88 islands and ishéus, with an extension of 2.6 square kilometers, where they live, in the 23 inhabited islands, about 33,000 of the two million inhabitants of the country.
The Bijagós Islands have already won several distinctions, also from UNESCO, concretely Biosphere Reserve in 1996, Don A Earth, in 2001, and Sítio Ramsar, in 2014, for the importance of this humid zone at international level.
Report published in OPTO in 2021
