The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - UNESCO founded in London on 16 November 1945 arose from the intention to contribute to the maintenance of peace, respect for Human Rights and the equality of peoples through the channels of Education, Science, Culture and Communication.

The World Heritage Convention to which there is correlated the World Heritage
List -WHL was adopted during the General Conference of UNESCO in 1972.
Currently 182 countries (as on 28 April 2006) adhere to the Convention, transforming it into one of the biggest international legal instruments for the protection of the cultural and natural heritage.

The Aeolian Islands belong to the UNESCO World Heritage
According to the Convention, cultural heritage means a monument, a group of
buildings or a site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological
or anthropological value. The natural heritage refers to important physical, biological and geological characteristics, as well as the habitats of endangered animal and plant species and areas of particular scientific and aesthetic value.

Sicily, with The Valley of the Temples in Agrigento (1997), The Roman Villa of
Casale in Piazza Armerina (1997), The Aeolian Islands (2000), The Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto (2002), Syracuse and the Pantalica Rock Necropolis (2005), is among the Italian regions with the biggest number of sites on the WHL.

...like the Sicilian Puppet Theatre 
Since 2003, the year of approval of the “Convention for the safeguarding of the
immaterial cultural heritage”, UNESCO has also set going projects to protect five spheres of human activity: traditions and oral expressions, including language,
seen as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; entertainment arts; social
practices, rites and feasts; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the
universe; traditional craftsmanship.

In Sicily recognition and inclusion in the WHL has gone to the tradition linked to
the Sicilian Puppet Theatre.

www.regione.sicilia.it/beniculturali