Dresden Elbe Valley (delisted 2009)

node · earth

An 18-kilometre stretch of the Elbe river landscape through and around Dresden, inscribed in 2004 as a cultural landscape. Planning for the four-lane Waldschlösschen road bridge across the heart of that landscape brought the property onto the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2006. In 2008 the Committee retained it, warning explicitly that if construction were not stopped and the damage reversed the property would be deleted in 2009. Construction proceeded — backed by a local referendum and by German court rulings that the city was legally bound to build it — and in June 2009, at the 33rd session in Seville, the Committee voted 14 to 5 with 2 abstentions to delete it. Dresden is the second-ever deletion and the only one where a democratic local vote ran directly against the Convention.