Una National Park and Vjetrenica Cave to be listed as World Heritage

(Patria) - Federal Minister of Environment and Tourism Edita Đapo met with the head of the UNESCO Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Siniša Šešum, the Secretary General of the BiH Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO, Biljana Čamur Veselinović, and the director of the public enterprise Vjetrenica regarding the ongoing process of inscribing nominated areas on the World Heritage List.

The relevant ministry, together with the State Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Cooperation with UNESCO, initiated the process of nominating two micro-locations of the Una National Park for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List: the Milančev buk waterfall in Martin Brod and the Štrbački buk waterfall of the Una National Park, i.e., the greatest natural value of this protected area – the travertine barriers. The Commission adopted the document for the inscription of the Martin Brod waterfalls of the Una National Park on the Tentative List of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Through the program of spending funds with the criteria for distribution of “Current transfers to other levels of government and funds – action plan of the environmental strategy”, established by the FBiH budget for 2019, the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism allocated 70,000 KM for programs of preparing nomination files for the inscription of natural assets on the UNESCO World Heritage List, i.e., nomination files for the protected area of the Una National Park – Martin Brod waterfalls and for the Vjetrenica area.

Šešum also referred to the recently held workshop in Mostar, within the project “Sustainable Tourism Development in the Area of World Heritage Sites”, for whose implementation UNESCO is responsible, which resulted in constructive cooperation among participants and a joint declaration. The significance of entering the World Heritage List is reflected in the preservation of biodiversity of certain areas, including endangered species of exceptional value for science or the preservation of life, and strengthening the capacities of tourist destinations, which is of exceptional importance for the Bosnian-Herzegovinian gems of natural heritage – the Una National Park, as the only national park in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Vjetrenica Cave, as a cave phenomenon and natural monument.