On November 29, the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park (within which the Nest Hotel is situated) joined an extended family of 630 World Heritage Sites, but although it is the youngest member of the South African clan of four sites, the mountain region immediately assumes a senior position, both locally and internationally.

The uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park is unique because it has been listed as a World Heritage Site based on its universal values to mankind. What makes it so special is that it has met the World Heritage criteria for both cultural and natural World Heritage Properties.

It therefore joins the list of Mixed World Heritage Sites and becomes the 23rd site in the world to be so inscribed. It also becomes the only mixed site in South Africa and the country’s fourth World Heritage Site after the Sterkfontein Cradle of Humankind and Robben Island – both cultural World Heritage Sites – and the St Lucia Wetland Park – a natural World Heritage Site.

In order for a site to be included in the World Heritage List it must meet one of the Natural Heritage property or Cultural Heritage Property criteria. The uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park satisfied two of the four natural criteria and two of the cultural criteria. International recognition was given to its unique richness of biological diversity, its endemic and endangered species, its superlative natural beauty as well as it masterpieces of human creative genius in the form of 35 000 Sans rock art images to be found in the site.
The following is the Statement of Significance extracted from the nomination proposal prepared by KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and Amafa and submitted to the UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Centre in Paris. It is succinctly describes the reason why the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park should be recognised as being of outstanding value and therefore “the best of the best”.

“The Park is the largest protected area established on the Great Escarpment of the southern African subcontinent. The escarpment formation, which includes the Drakensberg escarpment component, is intimately linked to the geomorphic history of the subcontinent and the fragmentation of the Gondwana super continent. Landscapes are outstanding and the geomorphological processes by which they where formed are believed to be of universal importance, that is, the horizontal sequence of geological formations which form the exposed east face of the Drakensberg escarpment record a ~ 130 Ma history in the evolution of the African continent before and after the break up. The Great Escarpment reaches it greatest and most spectacular expression in the form of the Drakensberg mountains that lie within the park. Also of outstanding universal importance are the mountain and wetland ecosystems with their full compliment of plants and animals with many endemic and internationally recognised threatened species, and including the high altitude and unique southern African alpine-tundra vegetation and its associated endemic palaeo-invertebrates.

“In addition to these natural property values, and located within its original natural setting and ecosystems is one of the world’s greatest rock art treasures that is of outstanding cultural value.

The art represents uniquely a coherent tradition that embodies the beliefs and cosmology of people whose cultural tradition is now extinct in the region. The uniqueness of the art is evidenced by the diverse subject matter, the minute detail portrayed, the art techniques, and the animation variety of positions depicted, as well as the remarkable state of preservation”.