[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 12 (Thursday, January 17, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3914-3915]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-00918]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service
[NPS-WASO-OIA-11846; PIN00IO14.XI0000]
Submission of U.S. Nomination to the World Heritage List
AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Department of the Interior is submitting a nomination to
the World Heritage List for the Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point
in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana. This is the third notice required by
the National Park Service's World Heritage Program regulations.
DATES: The World Heritage Committee will likely consider the nomination
at its 38th annual session in mid-2014.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen Morris, Chief, Office of
International Affairs at 202-354-1803 or Jonathan Putnam, International
Cooperation Specialist at 202-354-1809. Complete information about U.S.
participation in the World Heritage Program and the process used to
develop the U.S. World Heritage Tentative List is posted on the
National Park Service, Office of International Affairs Web site at:
http://www.nps.gov/oia/topics/worldheritage/worldheritage.htm.
To request paper copies of documents discussed in this notice,
please contact April Brooks, Office of International Affairs, National
Park Service, 1201 Eye Street NW., (0050) Washington, DC 20005; Email:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This constitutes the official notice of the
decision by the United States Department of the Interior to submit a
nomination to the World Heritage List for ``Monumental Earthworks of
Poverty Point'' in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, and serves as the
Third Notice referred to in 36 CFR 73.7(j) of the World Heritage
Program regulations (36 CFR part 73).
The nomination is being submitted through the U.S. Department of
State to the World Heritage Centre of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for consideration by the
World Heritage
[[Page 3915]]
Committee, which will likely occur at the Committee's 38th annual
session in mid-2014.
This property has been selected from the U.S. World Heritage
Tentative List. The Tentative List consists of properties that appear
to qualify for World Heritage status and which may be considered for
nomination by the United States to the World Heritage List.
The U.S. World Heritage Tentative List appeared in a Federal
Register notice on December 14, 2010 (73 FR 77901-77903), with a
request for public comment on possible nominations from the 13 sites on
the Tentative List. A summary of the comments received, the Department
of the Interior's responses to them and the Department's decision to
request preparation of this nomination appeared in a subsequent Federal
Register Notice published on July 14, 2011 (76 FR 41517-41521). These
are the First and Second Notices required by 36 CFR 73.7(c) and (f).
In making the decision to submit this U.S. World Heritage
nomination, pursuant to 36 CFR 73.7(h) and (i), the Department's
Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks evaluated the draft
nomination and the recommendations of the Federal Interagency Panel for
World Heritage. She determined that the property meets the
prerequisites for nomination by the United States to the World Heritage
List that are detailed in 36 CFR part 73. It is nationally significant,
having been designated by Congress as a National Monument and by the
Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. The owner
of the site, the State of Louisiana, has concurred in writing with the
nomination, and the property, a State Historic Site, is well protected
legally and functionally, as documented in the nomination. It appears
to meet at least one of the World Heritage criteria.
The Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point are nominated under
World Heritage cultural criterion (iii) as provided in 36 CFR 73.9(b),
as an exceptional testimony to the vanished culture of the people who
lived in the Lower Mississippi Valley 2,500-4,000 years ago. Located in
northeastern Louisiana on a bayou of the Mississippi, the site is a
vast, integrated complex of earthen monuments, constructed 3,100-3,700
years ago. It consists of six enormous, concentric earthen ridges with
an outer diameter of more than a half mile, and several large mounds,
including one of the largest in North America. This constructed
landscape was the largest and most elaborate of its time on the
continent; the particular form of the complex is not duplicated
anywhere else in the world. Even more significantly and unusually, it
was built by a settlement of hunter-gatherers, not agricultural people,
which challenges some conventional assumptions about what such a
society could achieve.
The World Heritage List is an international list of cultural and
natural properties nominated by the signatories to the World Heritage
Convention (1972). The United States was the prime architect of the
Convention, an international treaty for the preservation of natural and
cultural heritage sites of global significance proposed by President
Richard M. Nixon in 1972, and the U.S. was the first nation to ratify
it. The World Heritage Committee, composed of representatives of 21
nations elected as the governing body of the World Heritage Convention,
makes the final decisions on which nominations to accept on the World
Heritage List at its annual meeting each summer. The United States has
served four terms on the World Heritage Committee, but is not currently
a member.
There are 962 World Heritage sites in 157 of the 190 signatory
countries. The United States has 21 sites inscribed on the World
Heritage List.
U.S. participation and the role of the Department of the Interior
are authorized by Section 401 of Title IV of the Historic Preservation
Act Amendments of 1980, (16 U.S.C. 470a-1), and conducted by the
Department through the National Park Service in accordance with the
regulations at 36 CFR part 73 which implement the Convention pursuant
to the 1980 Amendments. The Department of the Interior has the lead
role for the U.S. Government in the implementation of the Convention;
the National Park Service serves as the principal technical agency
within the Department for World Heritage matters and manages all or
parts of 17 of the 21 U.S. World Heritage Sites.
The World Heritage Committee's Operational Guidelines require
participating nations to provide tentative lists, which aid in
evaluating properties for the World Heritage List on a comparative
international basis and help the Committee to schedule its work. The
current U.S. Tentative List was transmitted to the UNESCO World
Heritage Centre on January 24, 2008.
Neither inclusion in the Tentative List nor inscription as a World
Heritage Site imposes legal restrictions on owners or neighbors of
sites, nor does it give the United Nations any management authority or
ownership rights in U.S. World Heritage Sites, which continue to be
subject only to U.S. federal and local laws, as applicable.
Dated: December 12, 2012.
Rachel Jacobson,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. 2013-00918 Filed 1-16-13; 8:45 am]
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