Monte San Giorgio Unesco site gets a boost

Monte San Giorgio is regarded as a special site for fossils Keystone

The Unesco World Heritage committee has given the green light to the plan to extend the Swiss Monte San Giorgio Unesco site into neighbouring Italy.

This content was published on August 3, 2010 - 09:22

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Monte San Giorgio is regarded as the best place for studying fossil marine life from the mid-Triassic period and may once have been a part of Africa. It has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 2003.

The environment ministry said in a statement that it had been a joint Swiss-Italian project to boost the site and that the decision had been the result of “exemplary cross-border coordination”.

It will be the second Unesco area in the Alps to stretch over two countries. The first was the Rhaetian Railway line between Thusis (Switzerland) and Tirano (Italy).

Swiss delegate Rodolphe Imhoof is attending the Unesco World Heritage committee meeting in Brazil, which is deciding on candidatures from around the world.

He told swissinfo.ch beforehand that Switzerland’s aim was to apply the existing Unesco strategy as well as promote programmes where it could offer added value.

“For example, in training experts and managers for sites outside Europe,” he said.

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