Suggestions for the Darwin connection:

Aapravasi Ghat
>> although he visited Port Louis, I cannot find evidence that he saw Aapravasi Ghat (it would have been very active in his day)

Peninsula Valdes
>> he did not visit it, although its features are mentioned in The Voyage of the Beagle

Teide National Park
Los Glaciares
>> I would need more references to link these

There's a new Connection called Living indigenous religions. This includes the old entries for African indigenous religions.

Two suggestions that I am not sure about:
- SGang Gwaay (some hints to a living culture, but is it strongly related to a living indigenous belief?)
- Mongolian Altai (not living, only rock art?)

Re: Mongolian Altai - Shiviit Khairkhan - "The mountain is still considered sacred by local people." (AB ev)

Re: SGang Gwaay - "The site commemorates the living culture of the Haida people and their relationship to the land and sea, and offers a visual key to their oral traditions." (AB ev)

But we already have "Sacred Mountains" with this very example



No mention of "religion" - only "culture"

If we aren't going to keep "double counting" we surely need to do something more to define
a. "Living Indigenous religion"
b. adequate connection with that religion

We have the same problem with "sacred forests/groves" - many of them are going to relate to a living "indigenous religion"

And isn't Bahai for instance "indigenous" to Israel (and even Christianity the same?) - and Buddhism to India for instance (Bodh Gaya) ? Or does a religion only remain "indigenous" if it doesn't spread beyond the cultural group?

And what about Nikko and Shinto?

Ratites
I can find reference to any emus the Greater Blue Mountains. It's a big area but not really the right terrain.

The Baha'i faith was founded in Persia, not in today's Israel... But I agree with your main point.

I think you're right, I'll remove it. Funnily, there's a town called Emu Plains http://www.bluemts.com.au/info/towns/emu-plains/

Yup, Emu Plains is the last Sydney suburb before the Mountains. Definitely not in the inscribed area and a long time since there were any emus!

Re: indigenous religions
I concur this is a somewhat colonial concept, but yes indigenous religions (as also referred to by ICOMOS) are those religions which didn't spread.
This would exclude all Abrahamic (monotheist) religions as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism and Shintu. I don't know about Nikko.
As to double counts with sacred moutains and groves, I don't really see it as such. Sacred mountains can be Buddhist (Wutai), Shintu (Kii), Muslim (Soleyman-To), Christian (Sacri Monti, Saint Michel), Jewish (Temple Mount), Bahai (Carmel) or belong to an indigenous religion. Same is true for sacred groves (Bahai - Acre, Christian - Holy Valley... or indigenous).

OK - agreed. And the criterion for an "Indigenous religion"

But i think that Shinto meets these criteria. A search on "Shinto Indigenous religion" returns numerous hits eg http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art19100.asp

Oops - can of worms alert!

We already have this category:
http://www.worldheritagesite.org/categories/category16.html

It even includes Confucianism! And Shinto for sure.

Where can we see the categories?

Found it:
http://www.worldheritagesite.org/themehome.php

Maybe Els you could link it to the homepage so we could easily find it.

This is an old page (as you can see from the lay-out), Í'll try to get a new one added

Update: here's the fresh version: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/categories.html (looking into linking it from homepage or so)

Categories v Connections

We have had discussions about this in the past. The "decision" that "Connections" shouldn't duplicate "Categories" was made right at the start of the "Connection" idea some years ago when we didn't know how things would develop - I remember us reaching around 100 Connections and thinking we had "done well" - we are now over 1000!! So, perhaps the time is ripe for a rethink

I wonder if the restriction has outlived its usefulness (or even if the concept of a "Category" has too)?
A "Category" is concerned with identifying a site's prime attribute whilst a "Connection" merely identifies some secondary aspect -except that whilst an attribute might be "secondary" for many sites it might be "primary" for others and it would be illogical to exclude sites from a "connection" just because the connecting attribute happened to be "primary" for them.
So - It is perfectly possible for sites which were not inscribed primarily as "Religious Structure - Indigenous" to be "connected" with living indigenous religions as a significant but essentially secondary connection. Thus Konso is categorised (correctly?) as a cultural landscape but it could still legitimately be connected as being connected with "Indigenous Religions"

I notice that we assigned 2 categories to Uluru - "Natural Landscape Mountain" and "Religious Structire -Indigenous". I guess that all "mixed" WHS must by definition cover 2 categories as long as we separate natural and cultural categories but is it really a "structure"?