[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 12 (Thursday, January 17, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3914-3915]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-00918]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-OIA-11846; PIN00IO14.XI0000]


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

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The Department of the Interior is submitting a nomination to 
the World Heritage List for the Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point 
in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana. This is the third notice required by 
the National Park Service's World Heritage Program regulations.

DATES: The World Heritage Committee will likely consider the nomination 
at its 38th annual session in mid-2014.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen Morris, Chief, Office of 
International Affairs at 202-354-1803 or Jonathan Putnam, International 
Cooperation Specialist at 202-354-1809. Complete information about U.S. 
participation in the World Heritage Program and the process used to 
develop the U.S. World Heritage Tentative List is posted on the 
National Park Service, Office of International Affairs Web site at: 
http://www.nps.gov/oia/topics/worldheritage/worldheritage.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; Email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This constitutes the official notice of the 
decision by the United States Department of the Interior to submit a 
nomination to the World Heritage List for ``Monumental Earthworks of 
Poverty Point'' in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, and serves as the 
Third Notice referred to in 36 CFR 73.7(j) of the World Heritage 
Program regulations (36 CFR part 73).
    The nomination is being submitted through the U.S. Department of 
State to the World Heritage Centre of the United Nations Educational, 
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for consideration by the 
World Heritage

[[Page 3915]]

Committee, which will likely occur at the Committee's 38th annual 
session in mid-2014.
    This property has 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 U.S. World Heritage Tentative List appeared in a Federal 
Register notice on December 14, 2010 (73 FR 77901-77903), with a 
request for public comment on possible nominations from the 13 sites on 
the Tentative List. A summary of the comments received, the Department 
of the Interior's responses to them and the Department's decision to 
request preparation of this nomination appeared in a subsequent Federal 
Register Notice published on July 14, 2011 (76 FR 41517-41521). These 
are the First and Second Notices required by 36 CFR 73.7(c) and (f).
    In making the decision to submit this U.S. World Heritage 
nomination, pursuant to 36 CFR 73.7(h) and (i), the Department's 
Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks evaluated the draft 
nomination and the recommendations of the Federal Interagency Panel for 
World Heritage. She determined that the property meets the 
prerequisites for nomination by the United States to the World Heritage 
List that are detailed in 36 CFR part 73. It is nationally significant, 
having been designated by Congress as a National Monument and by the 
Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. The owner 
of the site, the State of Louisiana, has concurred in writing with the 
nomination, and the property, a State Historic Site, is well protected 
legally and functionally, as documented in the nomination. It appears 
to meet at least one of the World Heritage criteria.
    The Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point are nominated under 
World Heritage cultural criterion (iii) as provided in 36 CFR 73.9(b), 
as an exceptional testimony to the vanished culture of the people who 
lived in the Lower Mississippi Valley 2,500-4,000 years ago. Located in 
northeastern Louisiana on a bayou of the Mississippi, the site is a 
vast, integrated complex of earthen monuments, constructed 3,100-3,700 
years ago. It consists of six enormous, concentric earthen ridges with 
an outer diameter of more than a half mile, and several large mounds, 
including one of the largest in North America. This constructed 
landscape was the largest and most elaborate of its time on the 
continent; the particular form of the complex is not duplicated 
anywhere else in the world. Even more significantly and unusually, it 
was built by a settlement of hunter-gatherers, not agricultural people, 
which challenges some conventional assumptions about what such a 
society could achieve.
    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. The World Heritage 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. The United States has 
served four terms on the World Heritage Committee, but is not currently 
a member.
    There are 962 World Heritage sites in 157 of the 190 signatory 
countries. The United States has 21 sites inscribed on the World 
Heritage List.
    U.S. participation and the role of the Department of the Interior 
are authorized by Section 401 of Title IV of the Historic Preservation 
Act Amendments of 1980, (16 U.S.C. 470a-1), and conducted by the 
Department through the National Park Service in accordance with the 
regulations at 36 CFR part 73 which implement the Convention pursuant 
to the 1980 Amendments. 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 21 U.S. World Heritage Sites.
    The World Heritage Committee's Operational Guidelines require 
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. The 
current U.S. Tentative List was transmitted to the UNESCO World 
Heritage Centre on January 24, 2008.
    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. federal and local laws, as applicable.

    Dated: December 12, 2012.
Rachel Jacobson,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. 2013-00918 Filed 1-16-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-52-P