SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION No. STATE OF NEW JERSEY th LEGISLATURE INTRODUCED JUNE, 0 Sponsored by: Senator JEFF VAN DREW District (Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland) Senator ROBERT M. GORDON District (Bergen and Passaic) SYNOPSIS Urges nomination of Delaware Bay as World Heritage Site. CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT As introduced.
0 0 0 0 A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION urging the United States Secretary of the Interior to take all appropriate action to nominate the Delaware Bay for inclusion as a World Heritage Site. WHEREAS, World Heritage Sites are a relatively small number of places in the world that have been formally determined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee to possess outstanding universal value to humanity for their exceptional cultural and natural significance; and WHEREAS, The road to inclusion on the World Heritage List is a long one and success is not always assured, and according to the rules of the World Heritage Committee, countries may only nominate a limited number of sites per year; and WHEREAS, The first step in the nomination process for a site to be designated as a World Heritage Site is inclusion on a country s tentative list, and once placed on this list and subsequently nominated, a site is reviewed by one of the World Heritage Committee s advisory bodies, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) for cultural properties or the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for natural properties; and WHEREAS, These advisory committees make a recommendation to the World Heritage Committee as to whether or not the proposed site meets the criteria for inscription on the World Heritage List; and WHEREAS, To be included on the World Heritage List, a site must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of 0 selection criteria used to evaluate the outstanding universal value of nominated sites; and WHEREAS, Since, the United States has nominated some of its most iconic sites, as well as some lesser-known ones, for inclusion on the prestigious World Heritage List, and to date, sites in the United States have been designated as World Heritage Sites; and WHEREAS, Coordination of the United States participation in the World Heritage Convention is assigned to the Secretary of the Interior, and has been delegated to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, and the National Park Service s Office of International Affairs serves as the staff with day-to-day responsibility for the program, overseeing the development of nomination files, and managing the process for adding prospective sites to the United States Tentative List for possible future nomination; and WHEREAS, Joint Resolution No. 0 (0), approved on December, 0, recognizes the Delaware Bayshore as a region of special significance in New Jersey due to its important cultural, ecological, economic, historical, and recreational resources; and WHEREAS, The Delaware Bayshore, surrounding the Delaware Bay, stretches along the southwestern coast of New Jersey in Cape May,
0 0 0 0 Cumberland, and Salem counties, and contains numerous farms, forests, rivers, streams, and wetlands; and WHEREAS, The wetlands of Delaware Bay are recognized as wetlands of international importance by the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty on wetlands, and as a Hemispheric Reserve by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network; and WHEREAS, The Delaware Bay contains some of the country s most important migratory bird habitat and is home, or a critical migratory stopover, for over 00 species of birds, including many threatened and endangered species, and each year supports the second-largest shorebird congregation in North America as birds migrating from South America to the Arctic stop to fuel up for the long journey north; and WHEREAS, The region also contains the world s largest population of horseshoe crabs, which march up bay beaches each spring to lay their eggs, and in concert with this extraordinary event is the arrival of the shorebirds migrating from South America; and WHEREAS, Over eighty percent of the Western Hemisphere s population of red knot (Calidris canutus rufa) depends upon these horseshoe crab eggs to double their weight in less than two weeks each spring before migrating from the Delaware Bay beaches to Arctic nesting grounds, and in addition to providing the principal food source for migratory birds in Delaware Bay, horseshoe crabs comprise the main diet of juvenile loggerhead turtles; and WHEREAS, The Heronry on Pea Patch Island is the largest heron rookery north of Florida and supports one of the largest populations of wading birds on the East Coast; and WHEREAS, The Delaware Bay area supports federal and State endangered and threatened species, including bald eagle, peregrine falcon, pied-billed grebe, piping plover, short-eared owl, shortnose sturgeon, and five species of sea turtles; and WHEREAS, The Delaware Bay, its rivers, and many tributaries provide fresh water to residents and help sustain the region s industries, including commercial and recreational fishing, farming, commercial food processing, and nature tourism; and WHEREAS, The Delaware Bay is also responsible for much of the State s shellfish production, including oysters, crabs, and clams, which create millions of dollars in economic activity for the State each year; and WHEREAS, In addition to the ecological importance of the Delaware Bay, many towns in the Delaware Bayshore region are snapshots of a different era, providing cultural and historic opportunities and events; and WHEREAS, Bridgeton and Greenwich in Cumberland County, in particular, are listed on the National and New Jersey Registers of Historic Places, and New Jersey s official Tall Ship, the A.J. Meerwald, sails out of Port Norris, Cumberland County; and
0 0 0 0 WHEREAS, The Delaware Bayshore is also home to some of the oldest lighthouses in New Jersey, such as the Cape May and East Point lighthouses, which have guided ships in the Delaware Bay since the mid-eighteenth century; and WHEREAS, In recognition of the Delaware Bay and surrounding region s cultural, ecological, economic, historical, and recreational resources, it is fitting and proper to urge the nomination of the Delaware Bay as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; now, therefore, BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the State of New Jersey (the General Assembly concurring):. The Legislature urges and supports the nomination of the Delaware Bay as a World Heritage Site. The Legislature further urges the United States Secretary of the Interior to take the necessary steps to place the Delaware Bay on the United States Tentative List so that it may be considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee for inclusion as a World Heritage Site.. Copies of this resolution, as filed with the Secretary of State, shall be transmitted by the Clerk of the General Assembly or the Secretary of the Senate to the United States Secretary of State, the United States Secretary of the Interior, the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks of the United States Department of the Interior, the Director of the National Park Service, the Chief of the Office of International Affairs of the National Park Service, the Regional Director of the Northeast Region of the National Park Service, the Governor of New Jersey, the Governor of Delaware, the Governor of Pennsylvania, every member of Congress elected from this State, the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the Chair of the Delaware Bayshore Council. STATEMENT This concurrent resolution urges and supports the nomination of the Delaware Bay as a World Heritage Site. The resolution further urges the United States Secretary of the Interior to take the necessary steps to place the Delaware Bay on the United States Tentative List so that it may be considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee for inclusion as a World Heritage Site. World Heritage Sites are a relatively small number of places in the world that have been formally determined by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to possess outstanding universal value to humanity for their exceptional cultural and natural significance.
Nomination of the Delaware Bay would recognize the area s important cultural, ecological, economic, historical, and recreational resources.