5 African countries get a new UNESCO World Heritage site
The 47th UNESCO World Cultural Committee session recognizes new African sites as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
These sites emphasize Africa's rich cultural and biological legacy, showing sustained geographic representation.
Newly designated sites include ceremonial terraces, the Mandara Mountains, and Mount Mulanje with profound cultural importance.
These designations emphasize Africa's growing importance on the world cultural and biological map, and they reinforce UNESCO's commitment to balanced geographic representation.
A landmark or location designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as having exceptional cultural, historical, scientific, or environmental value and deserving of preservation for future generations is known as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Regardless of the nation in which they are situated, these locations are regarded as belonging to the collective legacy of humanity.
Below are the new UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Cameroon: Diy-Gid-Biy Cultural Landscape of the Mandara Mountains
The complex consists of sixteen ancient dry-stone terraces, platforms, shrines, and other ceremonial sites spread over seven towns. They constitute a distinct cultural environment that crosses the border with Nigeria.
This region is home to communities like the Mafa, Kapsiki, and Hidé, whose traditional farming, architecture, and religious ceremonies are inextricably linked to nature.
The Mandara Mountains are venerated as sacred, and the Diy-Gid-Biy terraces showcase centuries of sustained agriculture adapted to a tough rocky environment.
Malawi: Mount Mulanje's Cultural Landscape
This property includes the mountain range in southern Malawi, as well as the majestic Mount Mulanje, one of the world's largest inselbergs, and its surroundings.
It is revered as a holy site inhabited by gods, spirits, and ancestors, with profound cultural and spiritual importance.
The mountain's physical and hydrological aspects are linked to the Yao, Mang'anja, and Lhomwe peoples' beliefs and cultural customs.
Guinea-Bissau: Coastal and Marine Ecosystems in the Bijagós Archipelago - Omatí Minhô
The property encompasses a continuous succession of coastal and marine habitats that correspond to the marine and intertidal settings of Guinea-Bissau's best-preserved Bijagós Archipelago.
The Archipelago is the only functioning deltaic archipelago on the African Atlantic coast and one of only a handful in the world.
The park supports a diverse range of wildlife, including endangered Green and Leatherback turtles, manatees, dolphins, and over 870,000 migrating shorebirds.
It has mangroves, mudflats, and intertidal zones that are essential for marine life, as well as uncommon plant species, diversified fish populations, and bird colonies.
Poilão Island is a crucial nesting location for turtles worldwide.
Mozambique: iSimangaliso Wetland Park-Maputo National Park
iSimangaliso Wetland Park - Maputo National Park is a transboundary expansion of South Africa's iSimangaliso Wetland Park, which was designated in 1999.
It consists of terrestrial, coastal, and marine environments and is home to almost 5,000 species.
The location supports iSimangaliso's conservation values, helping to safeguard biodiversity throughout the Maputaland ecoregion. Lakes, lagoons, mangroves, and coral reefs are among the various ecosystems found here.
The park is located in the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot, which reflects high endemism and continuous natural processes while also highlighting long-standing regional conservation collaboration.
Sierra Leone: Complex of Gola-Tiwai
The Gola Rainforest National Park and the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary are part of this serial property. A hotspot for biodiversity, the Upper Guinean Forest is a part of the Greater Gola Landscape.
In addition to 55 animals (19 internationally threatened), the region is home to over 1,000 plant species (113 indigenous), as well as important species like the Pygmy Hippopotamus and African Forest Elephant.
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Travel + Leisure
4 hours ago
- Travel + Leisure
How a Glamping Adventure Revealed the Secrets of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon
It was a trip ordained by the heavens. I arrived in Santa Fe—for the umpteenth time since I first saw the Land of Enchantment as a teenager—on the eve of the new moon, one of the darkest nights in the lunar calendar, to join a spring stargazing adventure. Destination: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a vast Ancestral Puebloan complex located in the state's northwestern quadrant, a region noted for its dark skies. Taos-based tour company Heritage Inspirations organized the trip in collaboration with Santa Fe's storied Inn of the Five Graces. It promised archaeology by day and deluxe tented accommodations and astronomy by night—plus three nights in town to explore what's new in the country's oldest capital. Heritage Inspirations glamping tents in Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Chaco is mysterious. Chaco is magical. Chaco is a pain to get to. I'd been wanting to see it for years, but the UNESCO World Heritage site is about a three-hour drive from Santa Fe, the last stretch on unpaved roads, and the campsites are DIY. Plus, I never could have arranged the speakers and guides brought in by Heritage Inspirations to instruct—or perhaps I should say enlighten—me and my fellow stargazers on the secrets of Chaco Canyon. Our group of 13 spent the first night at the Inn of the Five Graces, across the street from the iconic San Miguel Chapel in Barrio de Analco, a neighborhood where the oldest house dates back to 1646. I checked in to my ornately decorated suite and joined other early birds for drinks on a sun-dappled patio. None of us had been to Chaco before, but we all felt its pull. A trio of silver-haired sisters had convened from around the country in remembrance of their late father, while a couple from Massachusetts were well versed in alternative theories about ancient aliens and lost civilizations. From left: Night skies over Fajada Butte, in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon; a Heritage Inspirations guest at the telescope. The remaining trip participants—two sons, one daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren of the hotel's founders—joined us for dinner in the Pink Adobe , the classic New Mexican restaurant opened in 1944 and now owned by the Inn of the Five Graces. Our Chaco education began with lectures by G. B. Cornucopia, a retired Chaco park ranger, and Isabel Hawkins, a research astronomer and former NASA advisor. Steeped in a lifetime of scholarship and on-site study, the pair summarized what's currently known about Chacoan culture. The society inhabited this place from about 850 to 1250 A.D. and left behind structures that are immense, built on the scale of ancient Aztec cities. And yet some things have never added up. Why has Chaco yielded so few cooking hearths, trash heaps, and burial sites—the typical signs of life left by a busy settlement? Pueblo Bonito, one of Chaco Canyon's 'great houses.'. The 'sun dagger' theory offers one explanation. In 1977, a young American artist named Anna Sofaer found a spiral petroglyph near the top of Fajada Butte, one of the highest points in the park. At high noon during the summer solstice—the middle of the day in the middle of the year, or 'the center of time,' as Cornucopia said—a dagger-shaped ray of sunlight crossed the spiral. Further study proved the petroglyph to be an accurate solar calendar, and it unlocked for Sofaer an entirely new way to understand Chaco. Perhaps it was not a city of residents but rather a ceremonial site built to align with both solar and lunar pathways. Seen this way, Chaco is a bit like the remains of a carefully calibrated celestial timepiece. As Cornucopia put it, 'The perfect order of the heavens recreated on the imperfect earth.' The next day, a bluebird sky promised ideal stargazing weather. As we rattled across washboard roads toward Fajada Butte, guide Lewis Bailey offered some advice. 'Rather than trying to figure it out,' he said, 'just be there and embrace the fact that this place has a special energy.' Archaeology can't explain why Chaco was created, Bailey said, and the Ancestral Puebloans left no written records to explain their purpose. We know next to nothing about their emotional, intellectual, and religious life—only that their gods, myths, and heroes were unlike ours. From left: The Dragon Room bar at the Inn of the Five Graces, with its striking light fixture; a crystal at the Inn of the Five Graces' newly renovated spa. First we stopped to visit petroglyphs near the park entrance and have a picnic lunch—lamb-pastrami sandwiches and seared-tuna niçoise salads—with postcard views of Fajada Butte. Then we explored Pueblo Bonito, the four-story stone 'great house' of around 700 rooms at the heart of the Chaco complex. I tried to imagine the social organization and sheer human energy required to build such a structure, but it was impossible to understand—especially given that they had no metal tools, wheeled carts, or beasts of burden to bring thousands of roof timbers from forests 50 miles away. Bailey told us that archaeologists had excavated traces of a walkway that once connected Pueblo Bonito to Chetro Ketl, another great house. The discovery brought the everyday world of the Chacoans vividly back to life for him. Imagine, he said, a group of teenagers loafing in its shade nearly a thousand years ago, hanging out and flirting like undergraduates on a modern college campus. From left: Dinner at the Inn of the Five Graces' Pink Adobe restaurant; Jonathan Boyd, left, and Zak Pelaccio of Leo's, a new restaurant in Santa Fe. The sky had turned overcast by the time we reached camp. Heritage Inspirations founder Angelisa Murray hurried us into a spacious welcome tent for cups of cacao—a nod to one of the products, along with macaw feathers, the ancient Chacoans imported along trade routes from Mesoamerica. I fretted about the clouds, but Heritage Inspiration's master sky watcher, astronomer Danielle Adams, brushed my worries aside. 'It will burn off,' she said. And sure enough, the sky was again clear by dusk, when we lined up at her telescope to view the celestial bodies. Adams also turned our attention to the eastern horizon, where a band of color known as the Belt of Venus glowed in the 'anti-twilight': the stretch of sky opposite the sunset. From left: A guest room at the Inn of the Five Graces; the inn's exterior. We broke for a dinner of cedar-plank salmon and zingy New Mexican white wines served in the lantern-lit dining tent. Over dessert, Adams explained her specialty, cultural astronomy. Every group of humans in the world, she said, has studied the skies and sought to explain the cosmos. Adams, who wrote her doctoral thesis on ancient Arabic astronomy, quoted lines of classical poetry describing phases of the constellation we call the Pleiades. One rhyming couplet instructs a young man to get an adze, or ax, when the Pleiades are overhead. As Adams explained, the Pleiades reach their apex during January's midwinter chill, when it's time to cut firewood. We stepped back out into the windy night. Adams used a laser pointer to draw lions on the sky, tracing the constellation Leo—which, like other signs of the Western zodiac, comes from Greek astronomy—then the Great Arabian Lion, a vast constellation that seemed to cover half the cosmos. Two traditions, two visions of the night. 'In my field we speak of cultural astronomies,' Adams said. 'There's no one astronomy.' I slipped away to my spacious tent and slid into bed, snug beneath handwoven blankets. At 4 a.m., as the Milky Way peaked overhead, my alarm went off: it was time to join Adams outside. For the next 20 minutes, as my eyes adjusted to the moonless dark, astonishing starlight revealed the landscape. I made out not just the profile of Fajada Butte in the distance, but also the shapes of rock formations around the camp. The Milky Way glowed against the deeper black of the cosmos, and I easily picked out man-made satellites moving in straight-line trajectories. Every few minutes a meteor slashed across the firmament—gone in a flash, like celestial lightning. From left: Dried-chili décor outside a suite at the Inn of the Five Graces; an adventurous dog in a sidecar outside the Chaco Canyon visitors' center. By 5 a.m., dawn began to glow in the east and the stars slipped back into obscurity. Less than an hour later, Adams and Bailey were leading us all across a mesa top to witness the moment that sunlight hit Fajada Butte. The rest of the day seemed never-ending. Even after hours outside, a leisurely breakfast, and another robust hike to view Pueblo Bonito from above, it was still only noon when we departed for Santa Fe. Unloading the SUVs three hours later, someone joked that we'd been on a 24-hour, 10-day trip. After glimpses into the ancient world and the eternal cosmos, I woke up the next morning ready to see what was timely and new in New Mexico's beloved cultural capital. I started right outside my hotel room, because the Inn of the Five Graces is currently in the midst of a generational renewal. The Relais & Châteaux property was opened in 1996 by Ira and Sylvia Seret, former New Yorkers who moved to Afghanistan in the groovy 1960s, then relocated to Santa Fe in 1978 to open a shop, Seret & Sons, where they still sell antique textiles and décor from around the world. As they step back from day-to-day operations of the hotel, their sons, Ajna, Isaiah, and Sharif, have brought in new managing director Kevin Geanides, formerly of Little Palm Island, in the Florida Keys, to steward the family's crown jewel through a careful handover. Ajna Seret led me on an end-to-end property tour and explained the brothers' focus on continuity. His parents' distinctive design DNA still shows in the new spa and suites—with their intricate mosaic bathrooms, layered antique textiles, and hand-carved wooden screens—but the vibe is lighter, airier, and more modern. That afternoon, I peeled away from downtown's tourist zone. Santa Fe skeptics may dismiss the city as a backdrop for turquoise-bedecked weekenders, but La Mama , an all-day café and natural wine bar on Marcy Street, was started by and for residents who crave big leafy salads and skin-contact wines. In Midtown Santa Fe, the creative conclave along Lena Street is anchored by the Bread Shop, which offers spectacular sourdough loaves and pastries. But the handsomest new restaurant in the land of green and red chiles comes from chefs and co-owners Jonathan Boyd and Zak Pelaccio (of Corner Office, in Taos, formerly of Fish & Game, in upstate New York). It is set to open this summer in a renovated service station and will serve knockout Thai food, of all things. And after my night among the leonine constellations, its name—Leo's—was hard to forget. A version of this story first appeared in the August 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline 'Secrets in the Stars.'
Fox News
6 hours ago
- Fox News
Destructive bug infestation threatens historic 1,000-year-old book collection
Thousands of historic books are in jeopardy over a massive bug infestation that could annihilate centuries-long of historical records. The Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary is a Benedictine monastery that is working to save books from drugstore beetles, according to The Associated Press (AP). About 100,000 handbound books are being removed by restoration workers to start a disinfection process that would kill any bugs that have nested in the pages. The beetles were found in a section of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that houses 400,000 volumes – which makes up a quarter of the books in the library. Zsófia Edit Hajdu, the chief restorer on the project, told AP they've never seen such an infestation before. "This is an advanced insect infestation, which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time," said Hajdu. Drugstore beetles are also called cigarette beetles. They commonly infest tobacco products, according to Oklahoma State University extension (OSU). Adult beetles are yellowish to reddish brown with oval-shaped shapes stretching about 1/10 inch long — and can infest leather. "They have been known to damage the leaves and bindings of books when feeding on the paste," says OSU's website. The Pannonhalma Archabbey was founded four years before the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary in 996, according to AP. It is home to the oldest and most important collection of books in the country, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. Ilona Ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, told AP that whenever she enters the building she is "humbled." "When I see a book chewed up by a beetle or infected in any other way, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost," said Ásványi.
Forbes
14 hours ago
- Forbes
The Douro Valley's Newest Wine Hotel Mixes Heritage And Modern Luxury
Torel Quinta da Vacaria Courtesy of the hotel 'The scenery does the work for us,' says Márcio Faria Dias, the hotel manager of Torel Quinta da Vacaria in Portugal's dramatic Douro Valley. The whole place is based on what he calls 'a way of silence'—to slow down, to disconnect, to relax in the spa, to enjoy some increasingly sought-after wines. The hotel, which opened a little less than one year ago, stands at something of a gateway to the most magnificent parts of the terraced Douro Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the oldest demarcated wine region in the world. It's easily reached by highway or train from Porto—none of the hairpin turns that are needed to access some of the more remote reaches of the valley—but also deep enough in to have the sort of scenery that can do the work of attracting international visitors. Of course, that scenery gets some skilled assists. The structure, which combines two existing manor houses (one of which dates from the 17th century, and the other of which is painted port-wine red in a nod to the location) with a new semi-underground schist building, is the work of Porto-area architect Luís Miguel Oliveira. The grounds were enhanced by landscape architect João Bicho, who aimed to preserve the region's native flora and create a space that's impactful without becoming too exotic or manicured. A hotel terrace LUIS FERRAZ The design of the 33 guest rooms, two restaurants, vinotherapy spa, bar and other public spaces is by Studio Astolfi. Lisbon-based designer Joana Astolfi is known for the deft mixture of old and new she installs in projects including Michelin-star restaurants, luxury retail and posh private residences. Here, she brings her signature spirit of play to spaces that feel warm and familiar, deconstructing Portuguese heritage, winking with old toys and tools, and using sly humor to avoid stating the obvious. Silhouettes are rounded to match the curvaceous hills outside, and the color palette emphasizes the blue of the river, the green of the vines and the dark red of their juice. The fact that this contemporary spirit glimmers in a region—the oldest of its kind in the world, as they like to remind us—that's steeped in tradition makes Torel Quinta da Vacaria noteworthy. But it's also somewhat par for the course for the hotel's management brand. The new property is part of the Torel Boutiques collection of small five-star hotels in Portugal; they're known for combining grand heritage with striking design. A guest suite LUIS FERRAZ The group also prides itself on its high service standards, and Quinta da Vacaria is no exception. Dias, who grew up nearby before attending hotel school in Switzerland and working in luxury hospitality in far-flung locales from Thailand to St. Barth, is clear that he's not aiming for 'white glove service, like at the Ritz in Paris.' That wouldn't make any sense here. What the hotel offers instead is an approach that's familiar rather than formal, with a young team that's 80% from the immediate area and almost entirely Portuguese. 'They bring a genuine hospitality that makes up for the lack of formal training,' says Dias, though only a stickler would complain about a lack of precision in a place with as much rural beauty as this one. In fact, it's hard to discern any lack of precision at the hotel's fine dining restaurant, another first in the area. The seven-table Schistó opened in March under the leadership of Vitor Matos, Michelin's favorite Portuguese chef. Two of his five stars are at restaurants within other Torel hotels, and they aren't shy about the fact that they're aiming for another one here. Schistó LUIS FERRAZ They've put the fully open kitchen the center of the dining room, as is fashionable these days, and they've fashioned a ten-'moment' tasting menu based on super-local ingredients: cheese from nearby Régua, vegetables and citrus from the onsite gardens, meat from local farmers, and freshwater fish and eel from the Douro and Corgão Rivers. Those moments change all the time, and they hand out signed menus at the end of each evening rather than promising any signature plates. Both in the pairing there and on the menu in the bar and in the casual, all-day restaurant, 16 Légoas (so named for its distance upriver from Porto, using an old wine-business unit of measure), all the wines come from Quinta da Vacaria. Dias admits this is a 'bold bet,' but insists that it's a bet worth making, both because it's a point of difference—no other five-star boutique hotel in the valley produces its own wine at all—and because the winery's nearly two dozen references are up to the job. The quinta's winemaking endeavors pre-date the valley's demarcation, which was done in the 18th century. A few historical artifacts around the property still reference its origins, in the year 1616. But the winery itself now occupies another new building, just up the hill from the hotel, a welcome addition the region's wine-tourism circuit. There, the tours include the usual tastings—including at a long table in a glass-walled room above the aging barrels—and a visit to a well-done little winemaking museum. They also organize private wine lunches in small glass houses above and among the vineyards. One of the winery's glass houses for private lunches Luis Ferraz While the hilltop house has impressive, wide-angle views over the Douro Valley, the hotel organizes excursions that give guests a close-up on the river below. They have a partnership with the local company Marma Slow, which has a collection of vintage wooden boats (imagine Italian Rivas but hand-built in Portugal), to take guests on slow-going river cruises. It's a stripped-down sort of luxury, and a welcome contrast to some of the bling that's happening nearby, and another case of letting the magnificent scenery speak for itself. MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Lisbon's New Fine Dining: 6 Restaurants That Are Better Than Ever By Ann Abel Forbes The New Quinta Do Pinheiro Brings Quiet Luxury To Southern Portugal By Ann Abel Forbes Portugal's Costa Vicentina: 11 Top Hotels And Restaurants To Know By Ann Abel
