Kirja edastamine

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, Place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 SP France

T: +33 (0) 1 45 68 13 63

H.E. Mr Priit Pallum Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Estonia to UNESCO 17, rue de la Baume 75008 Paris

24 January 2025 Culture Sector World Heritage Centre Ref: CLT/WHC/ENA/25/15149 Dear Ambassador, Firstly, I would like to extend my best wishes for the New Year. Now that the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting has been completed in all regions, I would like to refer back to my letter of 15 April 2022 (ref.: CLT/WHC/EUR/22/13819) regarding the World Heritage Online Map Platform (WHOMP)1 and renew my invitation to submit geospatial data for World Heritage properties on your territory to populate this innovative monitoring tool. If you visit this platform, you will notice that yours is one of the few States Parties in Europe and North America not to have submitted this data. As you know, clear delimitations are essential for the effective conservation, management and protection of World Heritage. However, the World Heritage Centre still holds mainly non-digitised cartographic information, with varying degrees of quality and accuracy. In the day-to-day work of the Centre, Advisory Bodies and site managers, the effective use of these non-georeferenced maps for monitoring purposes presents several challenges. For example, locating potential threats to sites’ Outstanding Universal Values (i.e., forest fires, flooding, etc.) using non-georeferenced maps is generally impractical and imprecise. The World Heritage Online Map Platform, developed thanks to the generous support of the Government of Flanders (Belgium), addresses this shortcoming and offers States Parties increased possibilities to monitor the state of conservation of World Heritage properties on their territory leveraging on geospatial technologies and paving the way for benefiting from more advanced Earth observation systems. Following Decision 46 COM 5A2, by which the World Heritage Committee, at its last session (New Delhi, 2024), encouraged all States Parties to submit georeferenced data in order to fully benefit from the potential of this tool for monitoring the state of conservation of World Heritage properties, I would be grateful if your competent authorities could provide the World Heritage Centre with the GIS layers of the property below no later than 28 March 2025:

• Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn

1 https://whc.unesco.org/en/wh-gis/ 2 https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/8453/

2 / 2

Georeferenced data should preferably be provided using the following online submission forms:

- https://survey.unesco.org/2021/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=549331&lang=en (English)

- https://survey.unesco.org/2021/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=549331&lang=fr (French)

Guidelines on the provision of geospatial World Heritage data are provided to States Parties to assist, as needed, in the digitisation of World Heritage boundaries and buffer zones. They can be accessed via the following link: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386781. GIS data of the boundaries of World Heritage properties is welcome in common formats3 and must strictly conform to the most recent delimitation adopted by the World Heritage Committee. All GIS layers will be subject to verification prior to inclusion on the web platform. If discrepancies are found, the State Party will be contacted by the project team to correct the data. Data received before the above deadline will have a chance, after appropriate review, to be included in WHOMP before the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2025. Please note that the World Heritage Online Map Platform project relies on the voluntary participation of States Parties and is separate from and complementary to the Retrospective Inventory project, an exercise launched in 2004 and for which the World Heritage Centre reviews geographic and cartographic information on World Heritage properties. Please note that maps have not been requested as part of the Retrospective Inventory for the properties listed above. I am confident that your competent authorities will share the wish of the World Heritage Centre to include georeferenced maps of the abovementioned World Heritage site in your territory as part of this digitisation process, which aims to integrate the latest available technologies into the monitoring of their state of conservation. Should you have any questions or require any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the project team at [email protected]. I thank you for your continuous collaboration and support in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention and remain,

Yours sincerely,

Lazare Eloundou Assomo Director cc: National Commission for UNESCO National Focal Point for World Heritage

3 For example, ESRI Shapefile, OGC GML, GeoJSON. Kindly avoid submitting.dwg files (AutoCad).

Suur-Karja 23 / 15076 Tallinn / 628 2222 / [email protected] / www.kul.ee / Registrikood 70000941

TLPA muinsuskaitse osakond

[email protected] 06.02.2025 nr 14-5.3/38-1

UNESCO palub esitada georuumilised andmed

maailmapärandi ala kohta

Edastame teile UNESCO maailmapärandi keskuse kirja, kus palutakse edastada georuumilised

andmed Tallinna vanalinna kohta, et neid saaks kasutada vastaval UNESCO veebiplatvormil.

Palun sisestage andmed kirjas näidatud veebivormi hiljemalt 28. märtsiks.

Lugupidamisega

(allkirjastatud digitaalselt)

Kerli Gutman-Normak

Peasekretär

Teadmiseks/sama:

Lisa: maailmapärandi keskuse kiri CLT/WHC/ENA/25/15149

Margit Siim 6441431