SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – On Saturday, Oct. 17, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will join a celebration at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park to celebrate its recent designation as a World Heritage Site. Now the 23rd World Heritage Site in the United States, the San Antonio Missions join the ranks of more than 1,000 inscribed natural and cultural sites worldwide with this prestigious recognition, like the Grand Canyon, Taj Mahal and the Great Barrier Reef.
The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated a group of five Spanish colonial missions in the San Antonio area – including most of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and the Alamo – as a World Heritage Site on July 6, 2015.
The group of former missions includes not just active churches, but also farmlands, living quarters, granaries, workshops, kilns, wells, perimeter walls, a cattle ranch and irrigation systems (acequias) that are still functioning after hundreds of years. These achievements were possible through the combined efforts of the Spanish and indigenous peoples living in the missions.
The Interior Department’s National Park Service (NPS) manages all or part of 18 of the 23 World Heritage Sites in the U.S. The NPS is also the principal government agency responsible for implementing the World Heritage Convention in cooperation with the Department of State. Other recent inscriptions to the list from the U.S. include the Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point, Louisiana, inscribed in 2014; and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawaii, inscribed in 2010. The Papahānaumokuākea is a vast cluster of islands and atolls with surrounding ocean to the northwest of the main Hawaiian Archipelago.
Who:
Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of the Interior
Michael Bean, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior
Mardi Arce, Superintendent, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
Ivy Taylor, Mayor, City of San Antonio
Nelson Wolff, Judge, Bexar County
Becky Dinnin, Alamo Director, Texas General Land Office
José Antonio Larios, Consul General, Mexican Consulate in San Antonio
Enric Panés, Counsel General, Spanish Consulate in Houston
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio
What:
San Antonio Missions World Heritage Site Inscription Day Ceremony
When:
Saturday, Oct. 17, 2015
11:00 a.m. CDT – Ceremony begins
Where:
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
Field in front of the Mission San Jose
6701 San Jose Drive
San Antonio, TX 78214
Media:
Interested media must RSVP to mpettit@cegroupinc.net with your name, outlet and number of desired credentials.
Source: Department of Interior
