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World Heritage law, Indigenous Peoples, and the nature–culture divide: Reconciling criteria with emerging practice

Part of: Decolonising Cultural Property: (Re)centring Indigenous Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2026

Sam Campbell Open the ORCID record for Sam Campbell [Opens in a new window]
Sam Campbell*
Affiliation:
Te Piringa Faculty of Law, The University of Waikato , New Zealand
*
Email: sam.campbell@waikato.ac.nz
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Abstract

The 1972 World Heritage Convention is one of the world’s most widely adopted treaties, providing for the international protection of world cultural and natural heritage that is of outstanding universal value to humankind. While the treaty has enjoyed some significant successes in the protection of heritage around the world, the criteria for assessing and inscribing cultural and natural properties create significant obstacles to meaningful engagement with and recognition of Indigenous relationships with land. Indigenous Peoples have argued that the separation of cultural and natural heritage under the convention is artificial and reifies a problematic nature/culture dichotomy that is inconsistent with the inseparable relationship between Indigenous Peoples, culture, and their lands and waters. Adopting the frame of political ontology, this article explores tensions between Indigenous ontological assertions and the current operation of the World Heritage Convention. The article examines the case study of the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage property, showing how the World Heritage Advisory Bodies are working to improve engagement with Indigenous ontologies, despite barriers created by inscription criteria. Finally, the article provides pathways forward for a more meaningful and holistic recognition of Indigenous Peoples in World Heritage through amendments to criteria to align with emerging practice.

Keywords

World Heritage ConventionIndigenous Peoplesnature–culturenatural world heritagepolitical ontology

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International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 33 , 2026 , e27
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Cultural Property Society

Introduction

The World Heritage ConventionFootnote 1 (WHC) is one of the world’s most widely adopted treaties, providing for the international protection of World Heritage (WH) that is of outstanding universal value (OUV) to humankind. World Heritage properties may be classified as cultural or natural WH that is of OUV, or both if the property independently meets natural and cultural WH criteria, which are prescribed under the World Heritage Operational Guidelines. Footnote 2 A bifurcation of nature and culture therefore lies at the heart of the WHC, and this has given rise to considerable tension in respect of WH properties on the lands of Indigenous Peoples, for many of whom nature and culture are inextricably interlinked.Footnote 3 Approximately 10 percent of all WH properties overlap with the lands of Indigenous Peoples,Footnote 4 but the majority are inscribed as natural WH properties only. This presents a significant obstacle because current natural WH criteria constrain capacity to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ connections to the land as a basis of OUV.Footnote 5 This article argues that the nature–culture divide in WH is fundamentally inconsistent with many Indigenous ontologies, and the WH criteria as currently framed do not create sufficient room to comprehend and recognize them. While separation of natural and cultural heritage has been critiqued elsewhere in general heritage scholarshipFootnote 6 and in relation to WH,Footnote 7 this article explores tensions between Indigenous Peoples’ connections to WH and constraints of the WH criteria, adopting the theoretical framework of political ontology to illuminate deficiencies in nature–culture bifurcation. This article explores the efforts of Indigenous Peoples to challenge the divide between nature and culture in natural WH and the potential for amendments to the WH criteria to move beyond the nature–culture divide. In order to give meaningful expression to Indigenous ontologies, WH criteria must not only take account of the blending of nature and culture in cultural WH properties, which is currently possible through recognition as a “cultural landscape”; the criteria must also take account of the blending of nature and culture in Natural WH. The analysis in this article further reveals that the restrictive approach of natural WH criteria have placed barriers before advisory bodies, who are developing and implementing innovative practices to better engage with Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with land in natural WH properties. Supporting this emerging work is necessary to overcome the shortcomings of nature–culture bifurcation, to meaningfully engage with the ontologies of Indigenous Peoples, and to improve compliance with Indigenous rights obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).Footnote 8

The World Heritage Convention

The WHC provides for the protection of the world’s natural and cultural WH that is of OUV.Footnote 9 The convention has enjoyed exceptionally widespread adoption by the international community, with 196 state parties to date.Footnote 10 World Heritage properties can be inscribed as natural or cultural WH, or both if they independently satisfy natural and cultural criteria.Footnote 11 As of 2026, there are 1,248 World Heritage properties, comprised of 235 natural, 972 cultural, and 41 mixed natural/cultural properties.Footnote 12 World Heritage properties are inscribed on the basis of their OUV, which is assessed in accordance with 10 criteria in the WHC Operational Guidelines. Footnote 13 While the criteria are not expressly identified as cultural or natural, criteria (i)–(vi) are commonly understood to relate to cultural WH, and criteria (vii)–(x) to natural WH.Footnote 14 In addition to meeting at least one of the 10 criteria, all properties must satisfy integrity requirements,Footnote 15 and all ultural WH properties must meet additional authenticity requirements.Footnote 16 Properties must also have an adequate protection and management system in place to ensure maintenance of OUV.Footnote 17 For all properties inscribed as WH, state parties must “ensure that effective and active measures are taken for the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage.”Footnote 18 The characterization of the heritage attributes contributing to the OUV of WH properties is therefore crucial, as it determines what needs to be protected and, by extension, what doesn’t.

The 10 WH criteria present a vision of nature–culture bifurcation. The criteria’s characterization of cultural and natural WH present a distinction in substance and terms. Cultural WH concerns heritage attributes that include monuments and groups of buildings that are of OUV from the point of view of history, art, or science, and areas that are of OUV for historical, aesthetic, ethnological, or anthropological reasons.Footnote 19 In contrast, natural WH includes natural features of OUV for aesthetic or scientific reasons, the habitat of threatened species of OUV from the point of view of science or conservation, and natural sites of OUV from the point of view of science, conservation, or natural beauty.Footnote 20 Properties can be inscribed as mixed WH if they independently meet both natural and cultural WH criteria.Footnote 21 However, these are separate tests. They do not challenge the bifurcation of nature and culture; rather, they reinforce it, recognizing only that natural and cultural heritage of OUV may manifest in the same place. However, the line drawn between nature and culture is not absolute. In 1992, a subset of cultural WH called the “cultural landscape” was introduced to WH criteria, which recognizes the “combined works of nature and of man,”Footnote 22 providing a limited bridging concept that currently presents the most promising avenue for challenging the nature–culture divide in WH.Footnote 23 Crucially, cultural landscapes allow for the recognition of the enmeshment of nature and culture as cultural WH. While the cultural landscape classification presents an opportunity to engage with Indigenous Peoples’ connection to land in WH, its explicit categorization as cultural WH is problematic, for the reasons explored subsequently.

Political ontology and the nature–culture divide in World Heritage

This paper adopts the frame of political ontology to analyze the implications of the nature–culture divide in WH criteria. Political ontology reveals the assertion of particular worlds and the enactment of realities,Footnote 24 challenging the modernist epistemic project of the “one-world world,”,Footnote 25 which singularizes nature and multiplies culture,Footnote 26 positioning it as the many “viewpoints” or “worldviews” that humans have in relation to a single, objective nature.Footnote 27 The nature–culture divide of the one-world world can be challenged by acknowledging the diverse ontologies that people enact through practices, which “do not ‘float’ over some ultimate (real) ontology.”Footnote 28 Many Indigenous Peoples assert and enact worlds in which nature and culture are not bifurcated but inseparable. These are not merely matters of opinion or perspective about a universally accepted, singular world; rather, they are enacted realities. The bifurcation of nature and culture under the WHC does not currently create space for comprehension or recognition of such ontological positions, particularly in respect of natural WH. As a result, the WH criteria have the effect of universalizing the one-world world, a reality not shared by many Indigenous Peoples (and others, such as spiritual groups). The universalist aim of the WHC, namely the protection of heritage that is of outstanding universal value to humankind, is therefore undermined by the criteria’s inability to recognize the inseparability of nature and culture for many Indigenous Peoples. As argued by West et al.:

the very assumption of a singular reality about which different cultures or disciplines offer different interpretations is only possible within knowledge traditions that make categorical distinctions between nature and culture.Footnote 29

Accordingly, the separation of nature and culture in WH criteria asserts and enacts its own modernist ontology of a nature entirely separate from humans, about which humans may hold distinct viewpoints, opinions, or worldviews.Footnote 30 As such, Indigenous Peoples’ assertions regarding connection to land and the inseparability of nature and culture are interpreted as cultural perspectives and cannot be comprehended outside of the modernist assertion of the one-world-world. As Blaser states,

the notion of “cultural difference” is a function of the modernist ontological assumption that there is one reality or world out there and multiple perspectives or cultural representations of it. Thus, when we treat difference as cultural we are sneaking up and advancing a particular ontology, which does not do justice to the ontological difference that might be at stake.Footnote 31

As a result, modernist ontological assumptions regarding the nature of Natural WH have the effect of silencing the distinct ontological positions of Indigenous Peoples, and undermine efforts to meaningfully engage with Indigenous Peoples in WH. Ultimately, the inability to take account of the blending of nature and culture under natural WH criteria diminishes the universalist aims of the treaty, as it entertains only one of many possible ontological positions concerning the connections between nature and culture.

Recognizing the distinct ontological positions of Indigenous Peoples and challenging the separation of nature and culture by engaging with the different worlds that people inhabit and enact is a fundamentally pragmatic approach,Footnote 32 including in relation to improving ecosystem protection,Footnote 33 an objective inherent to natural WH. In this spirit of pragmatism, this article advances specific legal recommendations for the amendment of natural WH criteria to allow for meaningful engagement with Indigenous ontologies through the blending of natural and cultural elements. It does so with the dual objective of more authentically representing the ontologies of Indigenous Peoples and improving compliance with Indigenous rights obligations. Providing more space within the WHC for recognition of the blending of nature and culture can more comprehensively represent and protect that the enacted realities of affected Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous heritage and the World Heritage Convention

The shortcomings of WH in comprehending the ontological positions of Indigenous Peoples is highlighted by the conceptual distinctions between Indigenous heritage and World Heritage. The UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) notes that for Indigenous Peoples “cultural and natural values are inseparably interwoven and should be managed and protected in a holistic manner,” and on that basis, “[h]eritage policies, programmes and activities affecting indigenous peoples should be based on full recognition of the inseparability of natural and cultural heritage.”Footnote 34 Consistent with this position, EMRIP describes Indigenous heritage as:

all objects, sites, plants and animal species, customs and practices, expressions, beliefs and knowledge, the nature or use of which has been transmitted from generation to generation, and which are regarded as pertaining to a particular people or its territory.Footnote 35

Further reflecting an interconnectedness between nature and culture, the United Nations Draft Principles and Guidelines on the Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People (2000) provides that Indigenous heritage includes “cultural property such as sacred sites of cultural, natural and historical significance,”Footnote 36 The UN Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities further provides that Indigenous heritage “includes all expressions of the relationship between the people, their land, and the other living beings and spirits which share the land.”Footnote 37 These positions are bolstered by UNDRIP, which protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples to “maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage,”Footnote 38 and to “maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands.”Footnote 39

On the basis of Indigenous heritage rights under UNDRIP, Indigenous Peoples have criticized the separation of natural and cultural WH as being “entirely artificial” and having problematic implications for Indigenous connection to land.Footnote 40 The basis of this argument is that “the lives, cultures and spiritual beliefs of indigenous peoples are inseparable from their lands, territories and natural resources.”Footnote 41 For many Indigenous Peoples, there exists an inseparable link between land and culture, with language, spirituality and life bound up in a profound relationship with environment.Footnote 42 On this basis, it is crucial to explore more holistic approaches to cultural and natural heritage inscription, given that the current criteria are inflexible in their capacity to meaningful recognize Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with land.Footnote 43

The divide between WH and Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with land has also been well recognized within WH institutional bodies. In 2022, former director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre Mechtild Rӧssler stated that “[t]here is an inadequate understanding of … indigenous peoples and their involvement in World Heritage.”Footnote 44 The World Heritage Committee has itself acknowledged problems with the application of the WHC to Indigenous lands. In 2024, the committee recognized that:

historically for some World Heritage properties, OUV has been defined without the meaningful or sufficient participation of the Indigenous Peoples concerned and may not have taken into account … their relationship with the land and the interconnectedness of nature and culture and that this may have significant negative impacts on the rights, practices, traditions, livelihoods and heritage of concerned Indigenous Peoples.Footnote 45

These statements are suggestive of both conceptual and implementation problems in the recognition of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their lands in WH. These issues are now addressed in turn.

Conceptual problems associated with nature–culture bifurcation

Current natural WH criteria do not provide for recognition of Indigenous connections to land or natural heritage attributes as contributing to the OUV of WH properties. However, this has not always been the case. The WH criteria had previously recognized that the OUV of natural WH properties could be established through “man’s interaction with his natural environment” and “exceptional combinations of natural and cultural elements.”Footnote 46 These grounds provided an avenue through which the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the subject site could be recognized and engaged with.Footnote 47 It is particularly notable that these former criteria suggest that intangible connections could form part of the OUV of natural WH. However, both of these grounds were removed from the natural WH criteria on the basis that an Expert Workshop at the Fourth World Parks Conference in 1992 concluded that they were “inconsistent with the legal definition of natural heritage in Article 2 of the Convention.”Footnote 48 The legal definition of natural heritage under the WHC includes “geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation”, and “natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation, or natural beauty.”Footnote 49 However, an interpretation of Article 2 adopted by the Expert Workshop, one that that precludes human interaction with nature, may have been unduly narrow. The term “conservation” is not defined under the WHC nor the Operational Guidelines, and is used in addition to the term “protection,” suggesting a distinction between terms. The word “conservation” is certainly capable of a broader reading that encompasses the “careful husbanding”Footnote 50 of ecosystems, providing scope for the recognition of human agency in conserving natural sites and human connections to nature more generally. This broader interpretation provides a direct avenue through which Indigenous Peoples’ connection to land can be recognized in natural WH. Indigenous Peoples can be credited with persistent and highly effective efforts to protect ecosystems and biodiversity across many regions of the world. Indigenous Peoples and their territories are critically important for the protection of ecosystems,Footnote 51 and they are custodians of a very high proportion of the world’s biodiversity.Footnote 52

The removal of human–nature interactions in natural WH criteria was met with criticism by Indigenous organizations. As recognized by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs and others, the amendment of the natural WH criteria “made it impossible to appropriately acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ relationship with their lands, territories and resources in the OUV of natural World Heritage sites.”Footnote 53 As a result of the omission, Indigenous Peoples are now generally not acknowledged in natural WH property inscriptions.Footnote 54 The result is that the majority of WH properties that overlap with the lands of Indigenous Peoples are inscribed as natural WH but do not recognize Indigenous relationships with land as a basis of OUV.Footnote 55

In the context of the amendments to natural WH criteria, the World Heritage Committee determined that people’s connections to nature would be more appropriately acknowledged as cultural WH.Footnote 56 In 1992, amendments were made to the Operational Guidelines to introduce new grounds for determining OUV on the basis of the “combined works of nature and man” in cultural WH criteria.Footnote 57 This kind of cultural WH is called the “cultural landscape.” As of 2026, there are over 120 cultural landscapes on the WH list.Footnote 58 Cultural landscapes currently represent the most promising avenue for recognizing the blending of nature and culture in WH.Footnote 59 Under the Operational Guidelines, cultural landscapes embrace “a diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and the natural environment,”Footnote 60 and “are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment.”Footnote 61 Cultural landscapes can range from those designed intentionally by people, which therefore have significant material cultural elements, to sites that are inscribed for religious or cultural association with the natural elements of the property.Footnote 62 The latter kind of cultural landscapes may or may not exhibit material cultural evidence.Footnote 63

The introduction of cultural landscapes in cultural WH criteria opened the door for sites that overlapped with the lands of Indigenous Peoples to seek dual nominations as natural WH and as cultural landscapes. In 1993, Tongariro National Park (New Zealand) became the first property on the WH list to be inscribed as a cultural landscape, on the basis of its “unique significance of the site for the Māori people.”Footnote 64 Soon after, in 1994 the natural WH property Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park (Australia) was additionally inscribed as a cultural landscape.Footnote 65 The property is noted as being emblematic of “an intimate relationship between people and their environment.”Footnote 66 Recognition of human–nature relationships through cultural landscapes provided an avenue for more representative characterizations of the heritage attributes of WH properties on Indigenous lands. However, while cultural landscapes can engage with Indigenous environmental management as cultural WH, it is only through recognition in natural WH that the success of Indigenous Peoples’ approaches to nature protection can be holistically acknowledged as being of OUV. Furthermore, cultural landscapes are limited in their ability to recognize Indigenous ontologies, as they remain strictly constrained to cultural WH criteria, thereby relegating Indigenous relationships with land to the sphere of perspective and culture rather than lived realities.

Implementation problems associated with nature–culture bifurcation

In addition to conceptual problems surrounding the nature–culture divide in WH, Indigenous Peoples have also experienced significant problems in the implementation of the WHC. The EMRIP notes that following the adoption of UNDRIP “there have been repeated complaints by indigenous peoples and human rights organizations about violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.”Footnote 67 EMRIP and others have called for the implementation of WH procedures to ensure Indigenous participation and the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in the nomination of WH properties.Footnote 68 Subsequently, a number of important amendments were made to the Operational Guidelines in 2015 and 2019 to better recognize the role of Indigenous Peoples in the implementation of the WHC.Footnote 69 These included that “States Parties shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned … to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before including the sites on their Tentative List,”Footnote 70 and that state parties “shall demonstrate, as appropriate, that the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples has been obtained.”Footnote 71

The participation of Indigenous Peoples in the nomination process and their free, prior, and informed consent to site nomination is crucial to ensure that the connections between Indigenous Peoples and their lands are appropriately acknowledged as part of the nominated site’s OUV. Failure to do so may have the effect of excluding Indigenous connections from the scope of matters that need to be protected to maintain the property’s OUV. As provided by EMRIP:

the protection of world heritage can undermine indigenous peoples’ relationship with their traditional lands, territories and resources, as well as their livelihoods and cultural heritage, especially in sites where the natural values are deemed to be of outstanding universal value but the cultural values of indigenous peoples are not taken into account.Footnote 72

This can lead to situations in which traditional and subsistence practices of Indigenous Peoples are constrained to protect and maintain OUV of natural WH properties.Footnote 73 This is reflected in the Operational Guidelines, which provide that Indigenous activities in Natural WH properties “may be consistent with the Outstanding Universal Value of the area where they are ecologically sustainable.”Footnote 74 This provision highlights the risk that Indigenous practices may be actively constrained in natural WH properties where there has not been adequate participation of Indigenous Peoples in the description of the OUV of the property.Footnote 75 This also highlights a risk of inconsistency with UNDRIP, which protects the rights of Indigenous People to “maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands.”Footnote 76 Recognition of these distinctive relationships is best achieved through provision for the blending of nature and culture in both cultural and natural WH, as this affords opportunities to more comprehensively engage with Indigenous ontologies. This issue is explored subsequently in the context of an exemplar WH case study.

Reconciling criteria and emerging practice

In light of these significant conceptual and implementation problems, adjustments to the terms and application of OUV criteria can assist in moving beyond the nature–culture divide to more meaningfully acknowledge and incorporate Indigenous Peoples’ connections to land and engage with distinct Indigenous ontologies. To do this, OUV criteria must recognize the blending of both nature and culture in cultural WH, which can currently be achieved through cultural landscape inscription, and the blending of nature and culture in natural WH, which currently cannot be accounted for. Pursuing mixed natural/cultural inscriptions for properties on the lands of Indigenous Peoples does not ameliorate the deficiencies in the current approach. There are procedural problems associated with dual nominations, as the WH advisory bodies are presented with barriers to the concurrent consideration of natural and cultural values due to the constraints of the current criteria.Footnote 77 In addition, cultural WH involves a more complex process of inscription than natural WH,Footnote 78 and this has previously presented barriers to inscription for Indigenous sites.Footnote 79

Recognizing the blending of nature and culture in natural World Heritage

To more substantively ameliorate the impact of a nature–culture divide in WH criteria upon the meaningful recognition of the connections between Indigenous Peoples and their lands, recognition of human–nature interactions as an element of natural WH is necessary. This can be achieved through reinstating reference to peoples’ interactions with their natural environment and “exceptional combinations of natural and cultural elements”Footnote 80 in natural WH criteria. This reinstatement has been advocated by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee on Indigenous rights grounds.Footnote 81 It is also crucially important for embracing the different worlds experienced by Indigenous Peoples, and in turn enhancing the WHC’s universalist aims.

Despite the inability of natural WH criteria to comprehend the blending of nature and culture, recent innovative approaches adopted by the WH Advisory Bodies have actively challenged nature–culture bifurcation. ICOMOS and the IUCN have worked toward meaningful recognition of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their lands in assessment of natural WH properties. This work has subsequently been reflected in the statement of OUV for one recently inscribed WH property, which has represented the most substantive recognition of Indigenous ontologies yet achieved in natural WH. Before consideration of this case study, a broader view of the representation of Indigenous Peoples in natural WH inscriptions provides important context.

Recognition of Indigenous Peoples in natural WH inscriptions

A review of the WH List reveals that there are, as of 2026, at least 43 natural WH properties and 10 mixed natural/cultural WH properties that recognize Indigenous Peoples in their statements of OUV.Footnote 82 The majority of these natural WH properties, 23 in total, refer to Indigenous Peoples only in respect of protection and management of the property, consistent with the Operational Guidelines’ recognition of Indigenous Peoples as “partners in the protection and conservation of World Heritage.”Footnote 83 A small number of properties recognize Indigenous Peoples under natural WH criteria in their statements of OUV. Four Natural WH propertiesFootnote 84 and four mixed natural/cultural WH propertiesFootnote 85 recognize Indigenous Peoples as directly contributing to OUV of natural WH. Almost all of these properties were inscribed before human–nature interactions were removed from natural WH criteria in 1992. However, one property inscribed after 1992 provides a pertinent example of substantive engagement with Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with land in natural WH: Pimachiowin Aki.Footnote 86 This property explicitly acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as contributing to OUV under natural WH criteria. In this way, the property demonstrates a blending of nature and culture and more meaningfully represents Indigenous ontologies.

Pimachiowin Aki

Pimachiowin Aki (“The Land That Gives Life”) is mixed natural/cultural WH property located in Canada on the lands of the Anishinaabeg First Nations. The property is inscribed under Natural WH criterion (ix),Footnote 87 under which it is recognized that “[t]raditional use by Anishinaabeg” is an “integral part of the boreal ecosystems in Pimachiowin Aki.”Footnote 88 The inscription further recognizes the “symbiotic relationship” between Indigenous People and nature in Pimachiowin Aki.Footnote 89 The site is described as an “exceptional example” of the tradition of “Ji-ganawendamang Gidakiiminaan (Keeping the Land).”Footnote 90 This tradition involves “honouring the Creator’s gifts, [and] observing respectful interaction with aki (the land and all its life).”Footnote 91 First Nations communities endorsed the WH nomination, and they were actively involved in the evaluation processes for the property.Footnote 92 The property demonstrates meaningful interaction with Indigenous ontologies in natural WH, despite the current criteria providing no formal mechanism for this to take place.

The Pimachiowin Aki inscription gives expression to the symbiotic relationship between Anishinaabeg and the land,Footnote 93 and in so doing effectively engages with distinct Anishinaabeg ontologies. These ontological positions have been expressed by First Nations representatives throughout the assessment, nomination, and inscription process for the WH property. Rabliauskas, a First Nations spokesperson for Pimachiowin Aki, notes that “[o]ur whole existence as a people is the interrelationships between our culture and nature where we have lived for thousand of years.”Footnote 94 Anishinaabeg representatives have expanded upon these relationships, noting that Pimachiowin Aki “is our very existence as a people,”Footnote 95 that “Anishinaabe communities remain intricately tied to the landscape.”Footnote 96 Pimachiowin Aki is further noted to demonstrate the “indissoluble links between an indigenous culture and nature.”Footnote 97 These statements refer not to Anishinaabeg perspectives on people–nature interactions, but a lived reality in which people and nature are inextricably linked. As aptly summarized by Hamilton, Pimachiowin Aki is emblematic of an “Aboriginal reality within Canada.”Footnote 98

In the assessment and nomination process for Pimachiowin Aki, ICOMOS and the IUCN achieved an unprecedented level of engagement with Indigenous ontologies in natural WH. However, the advisory bodies also acknowledged the structural barriers that they faced. ICOMOS noted that the property nomination “raised fundamental issues in terms of how the indissoluble bonds that exist in some places between culture and nature might be recognised”Footnote 99 and that there was “no way for properties to demonstrate within the current wording of the criteria, either that cultural systems are necessary to sustain the outstanding value of nature in a property.”Footnote 100 In the context of these challenges, IUCN and ICOMOS undertook a joint advisory mission in order to better facilitate evaluation of the interaction of nature and culture in Pimachiowin Aki. This process has ultimately resulted in the blending of nature and culture through both cultural and natural WH inscriptions, despite the current deficiencies in the criteria to accommodate this. In this context, it is notable that the IUCN included many references to Indigenous relationships to land in its 2018 nomination evaluation. This included the following recognition of a distinct relationship between people and land: “the Anishinaabe First Nations continue a tradition of living in, using and maintaining the landscape, and the nature conservation values of Pimachiowin Aki are shaped by this long history of interaction.”Footnote 101 The IUCN also noted that Anishinaabe First Nations culture is “inseparable” from nature and land.Footnote 102 These statements are currently not supported by natural WH criteria, and they demonstrate the innovative ways that advisory bodies are seeking to overcome the current deficiencies in natural WH criteria.

Amending natural World Heritage criteria

The Pimachiowin Aki case has also led others to advocate for the reinstatement of human–nature interactions in natural WH. Jones argues that the current natural WH criteria “makes it difficult if not impossible to appropriately acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ relationship to the land.”Footnote 103 This paper adds to that critique on the basis that Indigenous ontologies cannot be adequately represented through WH if they are relegated to the sphere of culture rather than a lived reality in which people and nature are intertwined. However, this argument should not be taken as a proposal to disestablish the distinction between nature and culture in the WH criteria altogether. This is not a pragmatic nor realistic course of action, given the WHC’s exceptional achievements as one of the world’s most widely endorsed treaty regimes, and its successes in protecting ecosystems, biodiversity, and heritage across the world.Footnote 104 It is important to recognize that this has included considerable benefits for Indigenous Peoples and their lands in some (but clearly not all) contexts.Footnote 105 Nonetheless, it is crucially important that space be provided for Indigenous ontologies to be comprehended and recognized in WH inscriptions, and not relegated to the sphere of perspective and culture. While cultural landscapes have provided a promising avenue for the recognition of the blending of nature and culture as cultural WH, it is equally important to recognize the blending of nature and culture in natural WH. This is a necessary step to overcome the inherent deficiencies of the nature–culture divide in capturing and protecting Indigenous Peoples’ connections to their lands and to WH. Reinstating human interaction with nature in natural WH criteria provides a concrete and practical avenue through which this can be achieved.

Conclusion

The nature–culture divide at the heart of the WHC provides very limited space for the recognition of Indigenous connections to land in natural WH properties. Indigenous heritage transcends distinctions between nature and culture and is bound up with distinct ontologies advanced and enacted by Indigenous Peoples in their relationships with land. The problematic nature–culture divide has given rise to significant conceptual and implementation issues that have negatively affected Indigenous Peoples, particularly in respect of natural WH properties that do not recognize the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the land on which the WH property is situated. While cultural landscapes present a promising opportunity to recognize people–nature interactions as part of the OUV of cultural WH, the criteria do not provide an avenue to engage with Indigenous ontologies in natural WH. To ameliorate the negative impacts of the nature–culture divide, and more authentically represent the character of Indigenous ontologies in WH, it is necessary to reinstate references to human interaction with nature in natural WH criteria. The example of Pimachiowin Aki shows that advisory bodies are already working in innovative ways to attempt to overcome the barriers currently placed before them by natural WH criteria. There is now an imperative to “catch up” with these emerging advisory body practices and allow space for authentic recognition of Indigenous Peoples in natural WH criteria.

Footnotes

1 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) (WHC).

2 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 77.

3 Techera Reference Techera, Alam, Bhuiyan, Tareq and Techera2013, 408. See also International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022.

4 Disko, Tugendhat, and García-Alix Reference Disko, Tugendhat, García-Alix, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 3.

5 Smith et al. Reference Smith, McNiven, Rose, Brown, Johnston and Crocker2019, 285; International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 12.

6 See e.g., Harrison Reference Harrison2015.

7 See e.g., Buckley Reference Buckley, Verschuuren and Brown2018.

8 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).

9 WHC, arts. 1–2, 4–5.

10 UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2026a.

11 WHC, arts. 1, 2, 11.

12 See UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2026b.

13 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 77(i)–(x).

14 See World Heritage Committee 2003, para. II.C.2.

15 World Heritage Committee 2025, paras. 78, 87–95.

16 World Heritage Committee 2025, paras. 78, 79–86. Authenticity is further assessed in accordance with the requirements of the Nara Document on Authenticity: World Heritage Committee 1994a.

17 World Heritage Committee 2025, paras. 78, 96–118.

18 WHC, art. 5.

19 WHC, art 1.

20 WHC, art 2.

21 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 46.

22 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 47.

23 For discussion, see Taylor and Lennon Reference Taylor and Lennon2011; Larsen and Wijesuriya Reference Larsen and Wijesuriya2015.

24 Yates, Harris, and Wilson Reference Yates, Harris and Wilson2017.

25 Escobar Reference Escobar, de Sousa Santos and Meneses2019; Law Reference Law2015; de la Cadena and Blaser Reference de la Cadena and Blaser2018.

26 Abramson and Holbraad Reference Abramson, Holbraad, Abramson and Holbraad2016.

27 Abramson and Holbraad Reference Abramson, Holbraad, Abramson and Holbraad2016. See also Blaser Reference Blaser2013.

28 Blaser Reference Blaser2014, 54.

29 West et al. Reference West, Haider, Hertz, Garcia and Moore2024, 16.

30 Byrne and Ween Reference Byrne, Ween and Meskell2015.

31 Blaser Reference Blaser2014, 52. See also Campbell and Gurney Reference Campbell and Gurney2024.

32 Blaser Reference Blaser2013, 559.

33 Campbell and Gurney Reference Campbell and Gurney2020; Campbell and Gurney Reference Campbell and Gurney2024.

34 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, Annex, paras. 6–7.

35 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, Annex, para. 2.

36 UN Economic and Social Council 2000, Annex I, para. 12.

37 Dorough and Wiessner Reference Dorough, Wiessner, Francioni and Vrdoljak2020, 414, with reference to Daes, Reference Daes1997.

38 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), art. 31(1).

39 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), art. 25.

40 Techera Reference Techera, Alam, Bhuiyan, Tareq and Techera2013, 408; International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 12.

41 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs and Forest Peoples Programme 2015, 5–6.

42 Dorough and Wiessner Reference Dorough, Wiessner, Francioni and Vrdoljak2020, 407.

43 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, Annex, para. 29.

44 Rӧssler Reference Rössler2023, 93.

45 World Heritage Committee 2024, para. 28.

46 Bureau of the World Heritage Committee 1992, paras. 6–8; Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 1992, paras. 36(a)(ii)–(iii).

47 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 13.

48 Bureau of the World Heritage Committee 1992, para. 6.

49 WHC, art. 2 (emphasis added).

50 Neumann Reference Neumann, Perreault, Bridge and McCarthy2015, 391.

51 See, e.g., Fa et al Reference Fa, James, Leiper, Potapov, Evans, Burgess, Molnár, Fernández-Llamazares, Duncan, Wang, Austin, Jonas, Robinson, Malmer, Zander, Jackson, Ellis, Brondizio and Garnett2020; Sze et al. Reference Sze, Childs, Carrasco, Fernández-Llamazares, Garnett and Edwards2024.

52 See Fox et al. Reference Fox, Reo, Turner, Cook, Dituri, Fessell, Jenkins, Johnson, Rakena, Riley, Turner, Williams and Wilson2017; Garnett et al. Reference Garnett, Burgess, Fa, Fernández-Llamazares, Molnár, Robinson, James, Zander, Austin, Brondizio, Collier, Duncan, Ellis, Geyle, Jackson, Jonas, Malmer, McGowan, Sivongxay and Leiper2018.

53 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 13.

54 Mamo Reference Mamo2025, 719.

55 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 12.

56 Bureau of the World Heritage Committee 1992, para. 8.

57 World Heritage Committee 1992a, 54–55; World Heritage Committee 1992b. See also World Heritage Committee 2025, para 77(iii), (v)–(vi), for the amended criteria.

58 UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2026c.

59 Taylor and Lennon Reference Taylor and Lennon2011; Larsen and Wijesuriya Reference Larsen and Wijesuriya2015.

60 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 47.

61 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 47.

62 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 47bis.

63 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 47bis.

64 World Heritage Committee 1993a, 8; 1993b, 39.

65 World Heritage Committee 1994b.

66 World Heritage Committee 2021, 8.

67 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, para. 38.

68 IUCN World Conservation Congress Resolution on the Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Context of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention 2012, para. 2; International Expert Workshop on the World Heritage Convention and Indigenous Peoples Reference Disko and Tugendhat2013, 60; UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, para. 38.

69 See World Heritage Committee 2015, 243–44; World Heritage Committee 2019, 218–23. These revisions followed a World Heritage Committee decision in 2011 that encouraged state parties to “[r]espect the rights of indigenous peoples when nominating, managing and reporting on World Heritage sites in indigenous peoples’ territories”: World Heritage Committee 2011, 271.

70 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 64.

71 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 123.

72 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, para. 55.

73 UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2015, para. 55.

74 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 90 (emphasis added).

75 This issue was particularly apparent in the listing of Lake Bogoria National Reserve (Kenya) as a natural WH property. There was no Indigenous participation in the nomination process, and Indigenous peoples had been forcibly removed from the property prior to its listing as a domestic reserve and subsequent WH nomination. See Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on Behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v Kenya. 2009. 276/2003 ACHPR 102 (Kenya). See also African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Context of the World Heritage Convention and the Designation of Lake Bogoria as a World Heritage Site (2011).

76 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), art. 25.

77 This issue was noted in the nomination and assessment process for the dual nominated property of Pimachiowin Aki, Canada. See further discussion concerning this property. See also UN Human Rights Council 2014, 127.

78 Gillespie Reference Gillespie2007, 10.

79 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 12. See also Larsen and Wijesuriya Reference Larsen and Wijesuriya2015, 10; Stefan Disko Reference Disko, Xanthaki, Valkonen, Heinämäki and Nuorgam2017, 57–58.

80 Bureau of the World Heritage Committee 1992, paras. 6–8.

81 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 12–13.

82 This figure excludes mixed properties that reference Indigenous peoples solely in relation to cultural WH criteria and/or authenticity requirements.

83 World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 40.

84 These are Chitwan National Park, Great Barrier Reef, Sagarmatha National Park, and Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand.

85 These are Pimachiowin Aki, Laponian Area, Tasmanian Wilderness, and Kakadu National Park.

86 One other mixed property references Indigenous peoples under natural WH criteria – the Laponian Area in Sweden, inscribed in 1996. However, this property acknowledges Saami culture only in respect of its aesthetic qualities in relation to Natural WH, which does not engage with Saami ontologies in respect of natural heritage. See, e.g., Byrne and Ween Reference Byrne, Ween and Meskell2015, 105.

87 Sites that are “outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals”: World Heritage Committee 2025, para. 77(ix).

88 World Heritage Committee 2018, 194.

89 World Heritage Committee 2018, 193.

90 World Heritage Committee 2018, 193.

91 World Heritage Committee 2018, 193.

92 Rabliauskas Reference Rabliauskas2020, 9.

93 For discussion, see Jones Reference Jones, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 441–57.

94 Rabliauskas Reference Rabliauskas2020, 9.

95 ‘Message from the First Nation Partners of Pimachiowin Aki’, quoted in Jones Reference Jones, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 443. See also Rabliauskas Reference Rabliauskas2020, 9.

96 Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, quoted in Jones Reference Jones, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 453.

97 Pimachiowin Aki Corporation 2016, i.

98 Hamilton Reference Hamilton2010, 17 (emphasis added).

99 ICOMOS 2013, 45. See also Jones Reference Jones, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 455–56.

100 ICOMOS 2013, 45.

101 IUCN 2018, 68.

102 IUCN 2018, 68.

103 Jones Reference Jones, Disko and Tugendhat2014, 457.

104 One of many examples of its success is the natural WH inscribed property of Tasmainian Wilderness, in which the Australian Commonwealth Government effectively prevented the Tasmanian government’s proposed authorization of dam contruction on the Franklin River, which flows through the property. See Commonwealth v. Tasmania. 1983. 158 CLR 1 (Aus).

105 See International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage, and Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee 2022, 1, 14, recognizing that WH “in some cases undoubtedly has played, a positive role for Indigenous peoples by helping to protect their lands and territories, as well as their cultural heritage and traditional ways of life.”

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