UAE | Environment

Al Ain listed as potential world heritage site

Al Ain is on Unesco's tentative list of World Heritage Sites, the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) said on Sunday.

  • Staff Report
  • Published: 15:28 June 1, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • The Falaj system is a unique engineering feat that was significant as a way to transport water and allowed the development of settlements.
  • Image Credit: Supplied Picture
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Abu Dhabi: Al Ain is on Unesco's tentative list of World Heritage Sites, the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) said on Sunday.

Al Ain has been chosen for its cultural wealth and for keeping its local character despite the infrastructure boom in the UAE. Should Al Ain make it to the final list, it would become the first city in the UAE to be on the World Heritage Sites list.

Al Ain still has a number of important archaeological sites, historic buildings, and natural areas, said Mohammad Khalaf Al Mazroui, Director General of Adach.

Al Mazroui said Adach is working to preserve forts and historical sites in Al Ain.

"Whenever possible, the original uses of these buildings will be revived, otherwise new uses will be encouraged so as to integrate these historic buildings in the structure of the city and thus ensure their long term preservation," Al Mazroui said.

Unesco urges world nations to identify cultural and natural heritage sites, and preserve them because they represent great value for mankind.

Outstanding universal value

Dr. Sami Al Masri, Strategic Planning Director at Adach, lists why Al Ain qualifies for the Unesco list:

  1. The invention of the Falaj system as an engineering feat. The Falaj system is not only significant as a way to transport water and thus allow for settlements to develop, but also as a pioneer water management system.
  2. The Hili civilization with its developed water management system, its fortified settlement architecture and its burial customs.
  3. Jebel Hafeet cultural landscape with its prehistoric desert encampments, its 4th millennium funerary landscape, its Islamic Falaj system and its oases settlements.
  4. Al Ain has various oases with their mosques, farms and other historic building which form the cradle of Emirati bedouin culture and symbol of life in the past and the capacity of man to settle and adapt to the harsh desert environment as well as to change his subsistence economy seasonally, moving from the deep desert to the oases areas and costal zones.
  5. Thriving practice of falconry and camel trading and racing.
  6. Al Ain desert red sand dunes, the natural heritage of Jebel Hafeet (for its flora and fauna significance) as well as the oases areas.
  7. Jebel Hafeet for its paleonthological value. The mountain, which is situated along the western flank of the Hajar Mountains, is a spectacularly rocky structure of limestone that rises abruptly out of the relatively flat surrounding desert plains. Some of the fossils found in Jebel Hafeet date back to the Cretaceous period.
  8. Jebel Hafeet for its wealth of flora and fauna, which includes several species in danger of extinction.

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