DOLOMITES - UNESCO World Heritage Site
The Dolomites joined the 176 locations already listed as UNESCO Natural Heritage sites on 26 June 2009.
For me, that was the fulfilment of a long-cherished hope. However, such recognition also imposes a major obligation. We must now see the Dolomites through new eyes: as a continuing process of the Creation and as an immense asset for humanity. The Dolomites are the mountains to which I owe my most beautiful memories.
UNESCO’s decision relates to what are “probably the most beautiful mountains in the world”. The Dolomites primarily owe their inclusion in the World Heritage list to their unique geological history, their striking character and need for protection. Formed some 250 to 50 million years ago as coral reefs in the ancient Tethys Sea, the Pale Mountains, as they are called, now stand as soaring rock towers overlooking the rolling Dolomite upland landscape. With their geological evidence of the history of the Earth and the exciting story of their more recent development, the Dolomites are a highly instructive phenomenon. The beautiful Dolomite scenery is the product of a rare concentration of spectacular mountain massifs, with their wide range of individual shapes. In South Tyrol, six nature parks are included in the list of Natural Heritage sites: Bletterbach Gorge, Trudner Horn Nature Park, Puez-Geisler Nature Park, Schlern-Rosengarten-Latemar Nature Park, Fanes-Sennes-Prags Nature Park, and the Sexten Dolomites Nature Park with the Drei Zinnen. In the Veneto, the World Heritage award involves the landscape around the Pelmo and Croda da Lago, and the area between Cadore, Zoldano and Ampezzo, in the Trentino the Marmolada, Pale di San Martino and the Brenta Dolomites, and in Friuli the Friuli Dolomites, with Oltre Piave as the most easterly part in the Italian provinces of Pordenone and Udine.
Reinhold Messner
|
