The UNESCO announced the happy news on Monday that the Rio Platano biosphere reserve in Honduras was removed from the list of endangered World Heritage sites.
In a media note from its headquarters in Paris, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science, and Culture made the announcement during a meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, where the World Heritage Committee analyzes this issue and the prospects of including new sites in the ‘at risk’ category.
The committee praised the encouraging results by the Honduran government’s efforts to safeguard the reserve in Rio Platano, registered on the World Heritage list in 1982 and in the group at risk in 1996.
Excessive agriculture, lumbering and hunting in one of the remaining Central American tropical humid jungles, habitat of abundant flora and fauna, were responsible for the risk.
Besides Honduran Rio Platano, the US Everglades National Park in Florida was also removed from the list.
