[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 19 (Friday, January 30, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 5676-5677]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-2044]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service


Submission of U.S. Nominations to the World Heritage List

AGENCY: Department of the Interior, National Park Service.

ACTION: Notice of Decision To Submit Nominations to the World Heritage 
List.

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SUMMARY: This notice constitutes the official publication of the 
decision to submit nominations to the World Heritage List for 
Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Hawaii, and Mount Vernon, 
Virginia, and serves as the Third Notice referred to in Sec. 73.7(j) of 
the World Heritage Program regulations (36 CFR part 73).
    The nominations are being submitted through the Department of State 
for consideration by the World Heritage Committee, which will likely 
occur at the Committee's 34th annual session in mid-2010.
    These two properties have been selected from the U.S. World 
Heritage Tentative List. The Tentative List consists of properties that 
appear to qualify for World Heritage status and which may be considered 
for nomination by the United States to the World Heritage List. The 
current U.S. Tentative List was transmitted to the UNESCO World 
Heritage Centre on January 24, 2008.
    The new U.S. Tentative List appeared in a Federal Register notice 
on March 19, 2008 (73 FR 14835-14838, March 19, 2008) with a request 
for public comment on possible initial nominations from the 14 sites on 
the U.S. Tentative List, particularly for the two sites named above.
    The comments received and the Department of the Interior's 
responses to them as well as the Department's decision to request 
preparation of these two nominations appeared in a subsequent Federal 
Register Notice published on July 8, 2008 (73 FR 39036-39039, July 8, 
2008). The Department considered public comments received during the 
comment period as well as the advice of the Federal Interagency Panel 
for World Heritage in making the decisions to submit the two U.S. World 
Heritage nominations. Both properties meet the legal prerequisites for 
nomination by the United States to the World Heritage List. They appear 
to meet one or more of the World Heritage criteria and all owners of 
the two sites support the nomination of these nationally significant 
properties to the World Heritage List.
    Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument was selected for 
nomination in part because it would, as a marine site and a mixed 
cultural and natural site in the Pacific, fill conspicuous gaps in the 
U.S. portfolio of World Heritage Sites. Similar gaps likewise exist in 
the World Heritage List as a whole, wherein few marine, Pacific, or 
mixed sites are listed. The State of Hawaii, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 
three co-stewards of the Monument, are strongly supportive of the 
nomination.
    George Washington's Mount Vernon likewise would fill a gap in the 
U.S. cultural site list and on the World Heritage List as a whole. It 
is an outstanding example of a type of colonial cultural landscape that 
was tied to the plantation economy based on slavery that prevailed in 
the American South during the colonial and early Federal periods. It is 
also the primary illustration of the early historic preservation 
movement in the United States. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, the 
owner, strongly supports the property's nomination.

DATES: The World Heritage Committee will likely consider the 
nominations at its 34th annual session in mid-2010.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen Morris, 202-354-1803 or 
Jonathan Putnam, 202-354-1809. For summary information on the U.S. 
Tentative List and how it was developed, please see the March 19, 2008, 
Federal Register notice (73 FR 14835-14838, March 19, 2008). Complete 
information about U.S. participation in the World Heritage Program and 
the process used to develop the Tentative List is posted on the Office 
of International Affairs Web site at: http://www.nps.gov/oia/topics/worldheritage/tentativelist.htm.
    To request paper copies of documents discussed in this notice, 
please contact April Brooks, Office of International Affairs, National 
Park Service, 1201 Eye Street, NW., (0050) Washington, DC 20005. E-
mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The World Heritage List is an international list of cultural and 
natural properties nominated by the signatories to the World Heritage 
Convention (1972). The United States was the prime architect of the 
Convention, an international treaty for the preservation of natural and 
cultural heritage sites of global significance proposed by President 
Richard M. Nixon in 1972, and the U.S. was the first nation to ratify 
it. In 2005, the United States was elected to a fourth term on the 
World Heritage Committee and will serve until 2009. The Committee, 
composed of representatives of 21 nations elected as the governing body 
of the World Heritage Convention, makes the final decisions on which 
nominations to accept on the World Heritage List at its annual meeting 
each summer.
    There are 878 sites in 145 of the 185 signatory countries. 
Currently there are 20 World Heritage Sites in the United States 
already listed.
    U.S. participation and the roles of the Department of the Interior 
and the National Park Service are authorized by Title IV of the 
Historic Preservation Act Amendments of 1980 and conducted in 
accordance with 36 CFR 73--World Heritage Convention. The Department of 
the Interior has the lead role for the U.S. Government in the 
implementation of the Convention; the National Park Service serves as 
the principal technical agency within the Department for World Heritage 
matters and manages all or parts of 17 of the 20 U.S. World Heritage 
Sites currently listed.
    A Tentative List is a national list of natural and cultural 
properties appearing to meet the World Heritage Committee's eligibility 
criteria for

[[Page 5677]]

nomination to the World Heritage List. It is a list of candidate sites 
which a country intends to consider for nomination within a given time 
period. A country cannot nominate a property unless it has been on its 
Tentative List for a minimum of a year. Countries also are limited to 
nominating no more than two sites in any given year.
    The World Heritage Committee's Operational Guidelines ask 
participating nations to provide Tentative Lists, which aid in 
evaluating properties for the World Heritage List on a comparative 
international basis and help the Committee to schedule its work over 
the long term. The Guidelines recommend that a nation review its 
Tentative List at least once every decade.
    Neither inclusion in the Tentative List nor inscription as a World 
Heritage Site imposes legal restrictions on owners or neighbors of 
sites, nor does it give the United Nations any management authority or 
ownership rights in U.S. World Heritage Sites, which continue to be 
subject only to U.S. and local laws. Inclusion in the Tentative List 
merely indicates that the property may be further examined for possible 
World Heritage nomination in the future.

U.S. World Heritage Nominations: 2009

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Hawaii

    This 1,200-mile-long string of islands, atolls, coral reefs and 
adjacent waters, running northwest from the main Hawaiian islands and 
encompassing over 89 million acres, is one of the world's largest and 
most significant marine protected areas. Scattered in the deep ocean 
are some 10 small islands along with extensive reefs and shoals. In 
this remote and still relatively pristine part of the Pacific, marine 
life flourishes, and the area is home to a large number of species 
found nowhere else in the world, including a wide array that are 
threatened and endangered. Large populations of seabirds nest on 
isolated sandy shores and the waters harbor impressive numbers of large 
predatory fish. The geology of the islands is also highly significant--
the chain represents the longest, clearest, and oldest example of 
island formation and atoll evolution in the world.
    Native Hawaiians reached these islands at least 1,000 years before 
any other people and established settlements on some of them. The 
islands, along with their significant archeological sites, retain great 
cultural and spiritual significance to Native Hawaiians.

Mount Vernon, Virginia

    George Washington's long-time home, with its associated gardens and 
grounds, forms a remarkably well-preserved and extensively documented 
example of a plantation landscape of the 18th-century American South. 
It was based on English models but modified and adapted to its American 
context, which included slave labor as an economic basis. There is a 
core of 14 surviving 18th-century structures set in a landscape of 
gardens, fences, lanes, walkways, and other features, situated along 
the Potomac River, that changed and developed over many years in 
Washington's family. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has owned and 
maintained the property for 150 years.

    Authority: 16 U.S.C. 470a-1, a-2, d; 36 CFR 73.

    Dated: January 16, 2009.
Lyle Laverty,
Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. E9-2044 Filed 1-29-09; 8:45 am]
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