Sat | Dec 13, 2025

Grange receives Port Royal World Heritage Site certificate

Published:Monday | August 25, 2025 | 7:34 PM
Minister of Culture, Olivia Grange, accepts from the Regional Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office of the Caribbean, Eric Falt, the Certificate of Inscription classifying Port Royal as a World Heritage Site.
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Minister of Culture, Olivia Grange, accepts from the Regional Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office of the Caribbean, Eric Falt, the Certificate of Inscription classifying Port Royal as a World Heritage Site.

Culture Minister Olivia Grange is reporting that she today received the Certificate of Inscription classifying Port Royal as a World Heritage Site.

The Certificate of Inscription was presented to Grange by the Regional Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office of the Caribbean, Eric Falt.

“This is a big deal,” Grange said.

“We are proud as the Ministry to have completed almost 40 years of our country’s dream to have Port Royal inscribed. We have delivered," she added.

Port Royal was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on July 12, 2025.

This inscription to the World Heritage List confirms Port Royal’s outstanding universal value which requires protection for the benefit of all humanity.

Grange said, “We are committed to preserving the heritage of Port Royal for the people of Port Royal, the wider Jamaica and the world.”

Mr Falt said, “It is a tremendous pleasure to celebrate this very important development. The Port Royal story is one of wealth and disaster, mirroring the weight of the human experience.”

He said that Port Royal was a place of global significance and that UNESCO would work with the Government to safeguard the Port Royal legacy.

Grange said Jamaica was thankful to the governments and people of Mexico, Netherlands, Canada and Japan for their support in developing and fostering the first underwater excavation led by a Jamaican team and to the “hard-working” technical team of the Ministry and its agency, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.

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