The Area of the Prespes Lakes

The T List “Area of the Prespes Lakes” (etc!) consists of those parts of Great and Little Lake Prespa (and adjacent land) which belong to Greece. They have been designated a Greek "National Park" for both natural and cultural reasons and this has been mirrored in the T List entry. However, the Lakes are shared with FYROM ("Macedonia") and Albania - neither of whom has placed their area onto their T List! Furthermore, they are situated extremely close to FYROM's existing "Mixed" WHS of "The Ohrid Region". Indeed, at its closest point, the current Ohrid core zone boundary is only 2.6 kms in a direct line from the FYROM banks of Great Lake Prespa, whilst its buffer zone actually reaches it! When we visited Prespes in Apr 2018 we had just come from Lake Ohrid and inevitably found ourselves drawing contrasts and comparisons between the 2, as well as considering what the impact of its near neighbour’s inscribed status might be if it were ever to try for Nomination. 

We had found the mix of Nature and Culture presented in the Ohrid WHS very unsatisfactory. The Macedonian lakeside has been significantly (over) developed and towns like Struga (pop 16500) and even much of Ohrid (pop 42000) are not only of no cultural value, but even detract from the natural values of the Lake area. In 1979 it had been nominated for both Natural and Cultural reasons (under the name of "Ensemble Naturel et historique de la …