continuity of parks

By 1987 it had been agreed that Hadrian's Wall--that is to say, those stones that remained of the old Roman border fortifications in the northern part of what is now called England, in the UK--met three important criteria toward achieving the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site:


US National Guardsmen at work on triple border fence, San Diego, USA, 2004. “Once built," said Jim Peugh, Chair of the San Diego Audubon Society, "this fence will never be taken down.”

1. "Bearing an outstanding testimony to a past civilisation;" 2. "Being an outstanding example of a building and technology which illustrates a significant stage in human history;" and 3. "Being an outstanding example of landuse which is representative of a culture."

In July of 2005, "part of the Upper German and Raetian frontier between the rivers Rhine and Danube" was added to the portfolio--as "an extension of Hadrian’s Wall." In the same stroke, the name of the project was upgraded to Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site. UNESCO referred to it as a "transnational property."

According to Hadrian's Wall Country: "Other parts of the frontier will be added in due course."

Border Fence, Imperial Beach, San Diego (AP)

Other countries clamoring to "put forward their sections of the frontier": Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia.

"The Frontiers of the Roman Empire WHS could in time embrace the line of the entire frontier of the Roman Empire from the Solway Firth to the Atlantic coast of Morocco."

UNESCO's description of Hadrian's Wall: "The site consists of sections of the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century A.D., part of what is known as the 'Roman Limes.' All together, the Limes stretched over 5,000kms from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast. Vestiges in this site include remains of the ramparts, walls and ditches, watchtowers, forts, and civilian settlements, which accommodated tradesmen, craftsmen and others who serviced the military."

To our knowledge, by the second quarter of 2006, there had not yet been serious considerations--on the part of UNESCO or the relevant branches of the US Department of the Interior--toward the historic/cultural conservation of border fortifications along the edge of what was then the Southwestern United States of America.