| The World Heritage Convention of 1972 has been one of the most visible international agreements related to environmental and cultural conservation over the past thirty years. This dissertation considers the role of the World Heritage Convention in protecting natural areas, addressing two major themes. First, to what degree are World Heritage Sites representative of global ecological regions? This part of the study uses a GIS analysis to assess the protection offered to different ecological regions by World Heritage Sites. Ecological regions were found to be protected to widely differing degrees, both by World Heritage Sites and by all protected areas. Although representativeness is concluded to be an important goal for endeavoring to ensure that all ecological regions have some degree of protection, it is questionable whether this goal is appropriate for the World Heritage Program. Instead, other protected area designations could fill the gaps left by the World Heritage Program, leaving the convention to continue its mission of protection outstanding sites. The second part of the study assesses the benefits and challenges of applying an international convention at the national level. It considers the US case through interviews with key informants and a questionnaire survey with visitors to four World Heritage Sites: Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Hawaii Volcanoes, and Yellowstone National Parks. National legislation provides good protection for US national parks, leading some to suggest that the World Heritage Convention is redundant in the US. Nonetheless, most interviewees were supportive of the convention, citing philosophical or indirect benefits of the World Heritage Program, and few disadvantages. The major disadvantage noted was hostility towards the program from some visitors, generated by concerns over loss of sovereignty. |
