BANGKOK: The cabinet this week approved documents to be submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) to include Songkhla and its associated lagoon settlements in the list of cultural world heritage sites, a news source said on Thursday (April 11).
Unesco’s committee will meet in New Delhi, India in July to consider candidates for cultural world heritage sites submitted this year.
To be eligible for consideration as a cultural world heritage site, the site must first be approved by the Unesco World Heritage Centre on its tentative list of candidates each year.
The centre, which is located in Paris, France, earlier announced that the deadline for submission this year is April 15. This means Thailand’s submission will barely make it in time, said the source.
The Unesco world heritage site committee normally take around one year to consider sites on the tentative list, meaning that the Songkhla settlements could be approved as a world heritage site by 2025.
Considered the heart of Songkhla, the lagoon settlements are in Songkhla Lake, the largest natural lake in Thailand on the Malay Peninsula in the southern part of the country.
Despite being called a lake, it is actually a lagoon complex, covering an area of 1,040 square kilometres and bordering the provinces of Songkhla and Phatthalung. Coastal areas of the lake are rich in biodiversity thanks to massive mangrove forests, swamp forests, paddy fields and grasslands.
Thailand has four cultural world heritage sites, namely the Historic Town of Sukhothai and associated historic towns, the Historic City of Ayutthaya, Ban Chiang archaeological site, and the Ancient Town of Si Thep and associated Dvaravati monuments. - The Nation/ANN
