Under Namibian legislation, the site is protected under Section 54 of the National Heritage Act. In 2007, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein as Namibia's first World Heritage Site as one of the largest concentrations of rock petroglyphs in Africa. The organisation recognised "a coherent, extensive and high quality record of ritual practices relating to hunter-gather communities [...] over at least two millennia" (criterion iii), and "links between ritual and economic practices in the apparent sacred association of the land adjacent to an aquifer" according to criterion V of the cultural selection criteria. Twyfelfontein was Namibia's only World Heritage Site until 2013 when the Namib Sand Sea was listed.