[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 67 (Tuesday, April 8, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19354-19355]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-07832]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service
[NPS-WASO-OIA-14775; 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 San Antonio Missions in Texas,
consisting of most of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park as
well as the Alamo, a National Historic Landmark. 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 39th annual session in mid-2015.
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 the ``San Antonio Missions''
in Bexar County and Wilson County, Texas, 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 Committee, which will likely occur at the Committee's
39th annual session in mid-2015.
This property has been selected from the U.S. World Heritage
Tentative List, where it was listed as ``San Antonio Franciscan
Missions.'' 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 March 5, 2012 (77 FR 13147-13149), 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 June 26, 2012 (77 FR 38078-38081). 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
Principal Deputy 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, as it comprises areas within a Congressionally-
designated National Historical Park and a site designated by the
Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. The owners
of the site, which include the United States Government, the Texas
General Land Office, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the San
Antonio River Authority, the City of San Antonio, Bexar County, the
Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, the San Juan Ditch Water Supply
Corporation, and the Espada Ditch Company, have concurred in writing
with the nomination, and the property is well protected legally and
functionally as documented in the nomination. It appears to meet the
World Heritage criteria for cultural properties.
The San Antonio Missions are nominated under World Heritage
cultural criteria (ii), (iii) and (iv) as provided in 36 CFR
73.9(b)(1), as the most complete and most intact example of the Spanish
Crown's efforts to colonize, evangelize, and defend the northern
frontier of New Spain during the period when Spain controlled the
largest empire in the world. Situated along a 7.7-mile stretch of the
San Antonio River, these five Spanish colonial mission complexes were
built in the early eighteenth century. The missions' more than fifty
standing structures, archaeological resources, and landscape features
include labores, a rancho, residences, a grist mill, granaries,
workshops, wells, lime kilns, churches, conventos, and perimeter walls
for protection. The ensemble of missions includes extensive
agricultural irrigation systems of acequias, dams, and an aqueduct. The
San Antonio Missions also meet with the test of authenticity and have
adequate legal, contractual, or traditional protection and management
mechanisms to ensure their conservation pursuant to 36 CFR 73.9(b)(2).
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 981 World Heritage sites in 160 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
[[Page 19355]]
Heritage matters and manages all or parts of 19 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: March 25, 2014.
Rachel Jacobson,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. 2014-07832 Filed 4-7-14; 8:45 am]
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