Jabal Bura and Jabal Haraz

Jabal Haraz and Jabal Bura are in a picturesque mountain region of Yemen, between Sana’a and al-Hudayda. They are both in the Tentative List of UNESCO, in different files, but Med-O-Med has considered appropiate to define just one Cultural Landscape that includes both mountains, because they are very close geographically and they share similar characteristics. So, basis on the UNESCO definition of Cultural Landscape (UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Article 1, 1972, Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, 2008), Med-O-Med resolves that the site is definitively a good sample of interaction between human being and nature, composing a living continuing landscape illustrated by their especific agricultural and irrigation systems (in terraced fields), and the architectonical style of their villages: -Natural Heritage Components: Rising abruptly off the steamy Red Sea coastal plains, these mountains are famous because of the grandeur of their natural landscape, the beauty of their tapestry of terraced fields, and their fortified villages on the top of the higuest peaks, composing an unequalled cultural landscape. The mountain is divided into terraces of a few acres or more, separated by walls sometimes several meters high. On these remarkable terraced fields grow alfalfa for livestock, millet, lentils, large areas for coffee and qat. Also in these mountains lies a remarkable relict of a of a past age, one of the last vestiges of extensive subtropical forest in the Arabian peninsula that hosts a very rich ecosystem and a high biodiversity, that coexist with the traditional human landuse.