VILNIUS, Lithuania-
A panda refuge in China and an agave producing region in Mexico were among eight sites UNESCO added to its World Heritage list.
More than 30 percent of the world's highly endangered pandas live in the Great Panda habitat in southwest Sichuan Province, said UNESCO in highlighting its reason for including the area.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization also named the agave growing area of Mexico's mountainous Jalisco state, where the plant is used in the production of tequila liquor.
The announcement drew praise from residents.
"We are very emotional. There is a lot of joy among people here because we have been waiting for this for a long time," said Yadira Gaytan, the assistant mayor of the town of Tequila.
The town is packed with breweries, cantinas and liquor stores and most of its 60,000 residents work in the drink industry or in its spillover tourism industry.
UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, meeting this week in Vilnius, is responsible for implementing the 1972 U.N. Convention on the protection of cultural and natural sites around the world.
The organization listed six other places "considered to be of outstanding value to humanity" to its list: Malpelo fauna and flora sanctuary in Colombia; the historical town of Harar Jugol in Ethiopia; the Chongoni Rock Art Area in Malawi; the cluster of stone buildings on the Aapravasi Ghat site in Mauritius; the Kondoa Rock Art sites in Tanzania, and the Stone Circles site in Gambia and Senegal.
The committee also decided to remove the Algerian site of Tipasa from its List of World Heritage in Danger, saying the local government has taken steps to ensure the integrity of the Byzantine ruins.
