Dresden dwellers want UNESCO title back

The majority of Dresden residents advocate a renewed effort to get their city back on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list after losing the title last week, a survey by daily Sächsische Zeitung found on Monday.

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The poll, conducted via telephone with 501 Dresdeners on Sunday, showed that an average of 64 percent wanted the tourism-boosting distinction. Among young people between the ages of 18 and 29, some 74 percent were in favour of a new application.

The Dresden Elbe Valley was stripped of its world heritage title after the UN organisation decided on Thursday that the construction of a controversial four-lane bridge being over the river would ruin the cultural landscape.

According to the Sächsische Zeitung, the survey results show a distinct change in residents’ sentiments over the UNESCO title. One week ago another survey found that half of Dresdeners considered the honour to be dispensable.

Just a day after UNESCO stripped the Dresden Elbe Valley if its status, Germany’s Wattenmeer – North Sea mudflats which are feeding grounds to millions of migratory birds and a unique ecosystem – received the world heritage title.

The decision put the Wattenmeer, or Wadden Sea, on the same level as the Galapagos Islands or the Grand Canyon. The heritage region stretches along the northern coast of Germany from the northern tip of the island of Sylt, to the Dutch island of Texel.

Click here for a photo gallery of the Wattenmeer.

With this status, UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, rules that humanity has a right for the area to be protected and preserved.

Germany now has two world natural heritage sites, the other being the Grube Messel, a fossil-rich site near Darmstadt in Hesse, which was given the title in 1995.