Unesco visits South Africa's first world heritage site

The Park Authority had come a long way in changing the Wetland Park into an even better place

They came, they saw and, by all accounts, they seemed mighty impressed.

Wrapping up a busy 29th session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) World Heritage Committee meeting in Durban, members headed north to the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park on Monday for a two-day field trip around South Africa's first World Heritage Site.

Hosted by the Wetland Park Authority, delegates took a launch trip from the St Lucia Estuary to view the animal and bird life from the water, before venturing deeper into the park along the Eastern Shores to Cape Vidal.

Speaking at the top of the dune ridge at Mission Rocks, overlooking Catalina Bay, Dr Mechtild Rössler, chief of the World Heritage Centre's Europe and North America Unit, said, "This is really a fantastic place."

The Park Authority, she said, had come a long way in changing the Wetland Park into an even better place.

(source: The Mercury / 19 July 2005)