Prof./Dr. Roland Lin, UNESCO

ISCCL Expert Member, France

The 48th session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Busan from 19–29 July 2026, resulted in the inscription of 25 new properties on the World Heritage List. However, none of the newly inscribed properties were formally recognised as Cultural Landscapes. As a result, the number of properties officially recognised under the Cultural Landscape category remains at 134, representing approximately 10.53% of the 1,273 properties currently on the World Heritage List, as of 29 July 2026. This is reflected in Decision 48COM 8C.

The outcome is particularly worthwhile for further reflections from ISCCL colleagues when considered against the increasing number of nominations being presented through a Cultural Landscape lens. For the 48COM session, three nominations were initially proposed with Cultural Landscape dimensions: the Village of Sidi Bou Saïd in Morocco, the Beaches of the D-Day Landings, Normandy, 1944 in France, and the Ribeira Sacra Waterscape in Spain. The first two were inscribed as World Heritage properties, but were not ultimately recognised as Cultural Landscapes, while the Ribeira Sacra Waterscape was referred.

This raises an important question for the ISCCL community: what happens when a nomination is presented through a Cultural Landscape framework, but the category is not ultimately reflected in the Committee’s decision?

The question is particularly relevant given the significant growth in Cultural Landscape nominations in recent years. At the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in UNESCO HQs (Paris) in 2025, 11 of the 30 nominations examined were proposed as Cultural Landscapes, representing more than one-third of the nominations under consideration. Five of the resulting inscriptions were formally recognised as Cultural Landscapes: Murujuga Cultural Landscape in Australia; Forest Research Institute Malaysia Forest Park Selangor in Malaysia; Mount Kumgang – Diamond Mountain from the Sea in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as a mixed cultural and natural property; Diy-Gid-Biy Cultural Landscape of the Mandara Mountains in Cameroon; and Mount Mulanje Cultural Landscape in Malawi. Several other nominations, however, were inscribed as World Heritage properties without being formally recognised within the Cultural Landscape category.

Taken together, these developments point towards an issue worthy of further examination. The Cultural Landscape category is increasingly being used by States Parties and practitioners to articulate complex relationships between people, place, nature, culture and history. Yet there appears to be a recurring gap between the way nominations are framed and the way they are ultimately categorised through the World Heritage nomination(s) process.

This was briefly raised during the ISCCL webinar Naturecultures Future and Heritage Practice: Between Theory and Practice in June 2026. The outcomes of the recent Committee sessions suggest that this discussion deserves further attention. Understanding why Cultural Landscape nominations are sometimes ultimately inscribed without recognition under the category could provide valuable insight into how the concept is currently understood, evaluated and applied within the World Heritage system.

For ISCCL, this could be an opportunity to undertake a more systematic analysis of recent nominations and Committee decisions, examining the relationship between Cultural Landscape nominations, Outstanding Universal Value, categories of heritage, and the advisory processes leading to inscription. Such work could also provide a basis for further dialogue with ICOMOS International and other relevant bodies.

The absence of new Cultural Landscape inscriptions at 48COM therefore deserves to be viewed not simply as a statistic, but as a prompt for reflection. As the number and diversity of Cultural Landscape nominations continue to grow, there is an opportunity for the ISCCL community to ask whether the current processes and understandings of the category are adequately responding to the increasingly complex landscapes being brought forward for World Heritage recognition.