World Heritage Watch is calling urgently on UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) to place the Saint Catherine Area World Heritage Site (WHS) on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. This call stems from massive and ongoing tourism developments that threaten one of the world’s most important religious and cultural landscapes and the continued failure of Egypt's government to uphold its commitments to the World Heritage Convention.  

Holding an immense spiritual significance for the world's three Abrahamic faiths, the region around Mt Sinai and the Monastery of St Catherine was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2002. The intent was to preserve in perpetuity this unique landscape, sanctified by centuries of pilgrimage and traditions by Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Until recently the sacred landscape around Mount Sinai remained remote and largely unchanged. This 'remoteness' is regarded by UNESCO as central to the Outstanding Universal Values of the site. Egypt, as the state responsible for the site's management, is formally committed to upholding those values. But now, dramatic changes threaten the integrity of St Catherine WHS, driven by the Egyptian Government itself.

Disfiguring a sacred landscape 

In the last three years the desert landscapes of this unique setting have been hugely disfigured, both physically and aesthetically. A gigantic tourism project has been built in the core of the site on the Plain of El Raha, where legend has it the followers of Moses waited for him during this time on Mount Sinai, in full view of the Monastery of St Catherine.

This $220 million project is constructing luxury hotels, 'ecolodges', entertainment facilities and new highways linking St Catherine with nearby Red Sea resorts and expanding its airport to receive international tourists en-masse. St Catherine is no longer remote. Residential housing will accommodate a planned population of 12,000 Egyptian migrant workers to service the tourism project. This risks culturally extinguishing the indigenous Jebeleya Bedouin community of about 4000. For details and images see https://world-heritage-watch.org/content

This massive project recently renamed the 'Great Revelation Initiative – the Land of Peace', directly violates both the Egyptian Government’s obligations to the World Heritage Convention and its own approved urban development plan which, among other things, aimed to protect the historically celebrated vista from the monastery over the Plain of El Raha. 

St Catherine's natural landscapes have been disastrously impacted and the rights and livelihoods of the already marginalised Bedouin tribe of the Jebeleya violated: homes, neighbourhoods and sites of cultural sensitivity, including a centuries old tribal burial ground, have been destroyed without consultation or notice to the Bedouin or the monks. A new urban world is being built around a people of nomadic heritage whose place in the region goes back millennia, to at least the time of the monastery's founding in the 6th century AD. This has all occurred without any UNESCO-mandated Heritage Impact Assessments.

While Egypt proclaims the Great Revelation Initiative as a 'gift to the world,' cloaking it with language of spiritual unity and global tourism, it is in fact desecrating the sacred landscape of Sinai, endangering St Catherine’s Monastery, displacing the indigenous Bedouin, and violating international heritage protections. The supposedly ‘spiritual’ project is nothing but the commodification of a sacred landscape.

Egypt’s history of non-compliance with UNESCO 

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) has continually requested Egypt implement measures to protect St Catherine's World Heritage Site since its establishment in 2002. The main demands are for a sustainable urban plan and a tourism management plan, but Egypt continues to ignore these requests. Instead, it has provided misleading or incomplete information to the World Heritage Committee. The Committee reports concerns about developments implemented without agreed plans, some in violation of agreed undertakings. In 2023 it demanded the project be halted until a Heritage Impact Assessment had been made. No assessment was made and building work proceeded.

In 2021 the World Heritage Committee requested Egypt facilitate an Advisory Mission to St Catherine, which did not happen for reasons that remain unclear. In 2023, a request was made for an urgent reactive monitoring mission to visit and assess the site, which Egypt also failed to facilitate. It is apparent Egypt's government has continued to delay and hinder the World Heritage Committee in its duties to protect the St Catherine Area World Heritage Site. 

With a new UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in progress, new requests to halt all development and urgently implement the monitoring mission will be made.

Egypt's UNESCO candidacy & global silence

The Egyptian government’s pursuit of its contentious project in St Catherine coincides with its nomination of Khaled El-Enany, a former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, for election to the post of UNESCO Director-General. It would be deeply concerning to have a Secretary General overseeing the World Heritage Convention from a country that has not only signally failed to uphold that convention but defied it openly in recent years. His nomination for Secretary General presents a serious conflict of interest for UNESCO – a fact that the world and WHC members must recognise.

Egyptian court ruling: a moment of peril 

A new peril has now arisen with an Egyptian court ruling that revokes the Monastery of St Catherine’s ownership rights to its ancient chapels, orchards and other properties across the WHS, transferring these over to the state of Egypt. Overturning a legal status-quo and ownership rights that have been recognised by governments since antiquity, this ruling puts the Monastery of St Catherine at the mercy of the Egyptian government and creates a legal precedent that seriously endangers its status and mission in the region. These attempts by the government to seize control of the monastery and its properties are interconnected as elements of a strategy to develop St Catherine as a major tourism hub. The massive impacts on the Outstanding Universal Values of the St Catherine WHS can no longer be tolerated and decisive action by UNESCO is imperative if it is to survive in anything resembling its original form.

List of World Heritage Sites in Danger 

Other sites have lost their World Heritage Site status for permitting developments arguably far less damaging than the huge project now happening in St Catherine. We call for St Catherine to be placed immediately on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. We also call for the Egyptian Government to reaffirm the ownership rights of the Greek Orthodox Church to the Monastery of St Catherine and its outlying properties. Current World Heritage Committee decisions should be strengthened to reflect this motion, and an immediate reactive monitoring mission to the site insisted upon. 

World Heritage Watch: Urgent Actions Required  

World Heritage Watch recommends several actions be urgenty taken to avoid the further deterioration of an already catastrophic situation in the St Catherine UNESCO World Heritage Site: 

• We call upon the international community to request the St Catherine UNESCO World Heritage Site is placed on the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger until remedial action is taken. 
• We call upon the international community to support our demands that all development in the St Catherine Area be halted and the long-delayed UNESCO Reactive Monitoring Mission to the site scheduled for 2024 is organised and undertaken immediately. 
• We urge the remoteness and serenity of the St Catherine Area, a key value of the World Heritage Convention, be preserved under all circumstances in order to maintain the sacred character of the landscape and enable the spiritual retreat of the monks.
• We urge UNESCO to urgently review the role and culpability of its Cairo regional office in this matter, as its reports lacked any rigorous critique of evident violations of the World Heritage Convention and instead commented on the development’s apparent virtues.
• We demand a treaty between the Egyptian government and Archbishop of the Monastery of St Catherine be concluded, which confirms for all future that ownership and management of the monastery and all the lands in question rest with the monastery.
• This treaty should clarify that management must be performed in conformity with the principles of nature conservation and sustainable land use, except for the preservation of the antiquities which should be managed by the Egyptian Antiquities Administration, in full compliance with the Outstanding Universal Value of the St Catherine UNESCO World heritage Site and in full observance of the decisions of the World Heritage Committee. 

John Grainger, Joe Hobbs, Stepham Doempke & Ben Hoffler

World Heritage Watch

Media Contact: 

World Heritage Watch: website https://world-heritage-watch.org/content; email contact@world-heritage-watch.org