[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 67 (Tuesday, April 8, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19354-19355]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-07832]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-OIA-14775; PIN00IO14.XI0000]


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

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of the Interior is submitting a nomination to 
the World Heritage List for the San Antonio Missions in Texas, 
consisting of most of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park as 
well as the Alamo, a National Historic Landmark. 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 39th annual session in mid-2015.

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 the ``San Antonio Missions'' 
in Bexar County and Wilson County, Texas, 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 Committee, which will likely occur at the Committee's 
39th annual session in mid-2015.
    This property has been selected from the U.S. World Heritage 
Tentative List, where it was listed as ``San Antonio Franciscan 
Missions.'' 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 March 5, 2012 (77 FR 13147-13149), 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 June 26, 2012 (77 FR 38078-38081). 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 
Principal Deputy 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, as it comprises areas within a Congressionally-
designated National Historical Park and a site designated by the 
Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. The owners 
of the site, which include the United States Government, the Texas 
General Land Office, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the San 
Antonio River Authority, the City of San Antonio, Bexar County, the 
Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, the San Juan Ditch Water Supply 
Corporation, and the Espada Ditch Company, have concurred in writing 
with the nomination, and the property is well protected legally and 
functionally as documented in the nomination. It appears to meet the 
World Heritage criteria for cultural properties.
    The San Antonio Missions are nominated under World Heritage 
cultural criteria (ii), (iii) and (iv) as provided in 36 CFR 
73.9(b)(1), as the most complete and most intact example of the Spanish 
Crown's efforts to colonize, evangelize, and defend the northern 
frontier of New Spain during the period when Spain controlled the 
largest empire in the world. Situated along a 7.7-mile stretch of the 
San Antonio River, these five Spanish colonial mission complexes were 
built in the early eighteenth century. The missions' more than fifty 
standing structures, archaeological resources, and landscape features 
include labores, a rancho, residences, a grist mill, granaries, 
workshops, wells, lime kilns, churches, conventos, and perimeter walls 
for protection. The ensemble of missions includes extensive 
agricultural irrigation systems of acequias, dams, and an aqueduct. The 
San Antonio Missions also meet with the test of authenticity and have 
adequate legal, contractual, or traditional protection and management 
mechanisms to ensure their conservation pursuant to 36 CFR 73.9(b)(2).
    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 981 World Heritage sites in 160 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

[[Page 19355]]

Heritage matters and manages all or parts of 19 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: March 25, 2014.
Rachel Jacobson,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. 2014-07832 Filed 4-7-14; 8:45 am]
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