See Them Before They Die

Posted on 17. Apr, 2009 by Kerry Banks in International

Every year it seems there is yet another book published that tells us which places we must visit before we die. Since that territory has now been so thoroughly trampled, I am offering a twist on the theme–destinations you should visit before they die. There are many world wonders threatened today by pollution, global warming, runaway development, armed conflict and mismanaged tourism. I’ve picked a few sites that stand directly in the firing line. Hopefully they will survive, but in the meantime, the doomsday clock is ticking.

Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan, Myanmar: Once considered among the most precious collections of relics in Southeast Asia, second only to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, Bagan (formerly Pagan) is in danger of becoming an unmitigated disaster, say archaeologists. An eleventh-century king is credited with building many of the original shrines, ornamenting what was then Myanmar’s royal capital with symbols of his religious fervour. After a 1975 earthquake damaged several of the most important temples, government officials invited a team of UNESCO archaeologists to help restore and reinforce the monuments, and Bagan seemed well on its way to becoming a World Heritage Site. But by the early 1990s, Myanmar’s notoriously ruthless military regime was no longer interested in adhering to the exacting UNESCO standards for historic preservation, choosing instead to fast-track the restorations and erect replicas of monasteries, stupas, and temples—many from scratch and with inferior materials—in an effort to lure more visitors to the country’s most popular tourist attraction. The original stupas took months or years to construct, but the modern facsimiles are completed in a mere two weeks.
Galapagos Island

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: Too much of a good thing can have negative consequences. More than 120,000 visitors a year come to the Galapagos to gaze at giant tortoises, iguanas, Darwin’s finches and other endemic species. That’s a spike of 80,000 people since the early 1980s. Adding to this is a steep rise in immigration from the mainland, 965 kilometres away, which has contributed to overfishing and pollution. The biggest threat to the islands’ ecosystem, however, is a steady influx of invasive species stowed away on boats and flights. Conservation organizations spent $18 million over the last six years to wipe out 140,000 feral goats. But the islands remain plagued by cats, rats, fire ants, and hundreds of other non-native plants and animals, as well as germ-laden insects to which the native animals are not immune.
Banaue Rice Fields

Banaue Rice Terraces, The Philippines: Built and maintained by the Ifugao people for the last 3,000 years, these amazing rice terraces achieved UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1995, but that has provided few economic benefits from tourism for the farming population. Two clusters of the five terraces are now considered to be threatened because of increasing pressures due to urbanization, land use conversion and shifting cultivation, and other demographic pressures. Other causes of the terraces’ degradation are a lack of interest on the part of younger Ifugaos in learning the relevant techniques and the fact that the terraces’ low yields are in many cases sufficient for only four months per year.
Everglades National Park, Florida, USA: This 1.5 million-acre area, which is full of rare and endangered species like the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee, is the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S.. However, today it a mere shadow of its twentieth-century self, shrunk by half under suburbs and sugar farms, its natural course dammed or diverted by roads, canals, locks, and levees—changes that have left no fewer than 14 animal species here threatened with extinction. Urban development, including condominiums and shopping malls, agricultural fertilizer, mercury contamination of fish and wildlife and lower water levels due to flood controls continue to threaten the Everglades. Already, half the ecosystem is gone. On the World Heritage Centre’s Danger List since 1993, the park is also at serious risk from climate change and sea-level rise.
Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo: Civil unrest and armed conflict extending back to the mid-1990s has devastated the DRC, claiming an estimated four million human lives since 1998. This war—considered the deadliest since World War II—has also had a drastic implications for wildlife in the DRC. Perhaps the most horrifying example of the impact of conflict is occurring in Virunga National Park, the oldest national park in Africa. Virunga is one of the most biologically diverse regions of Africa, with over 700 species of birds and 200 species of mammals. It was named a World Heritage Site in 1979 for its natural habitats—essential to the preservation of biological diversity and endangered species, including the mountain gorilla. There are only around 700 mountain gorillas left in the world, and more than half of them live in Virunga. Today, ongoing conflict continues to threaten this dwindling population. In 2007 alone, 10 mountain gorillas were slaughtered.
Walled City of Baku, Azerbaijan: Since it was built in the 12th century by Iranians, the walled city of Baku has survived invasions and bombardment by Russian warships, civil war and revolution. But now the citadel designated a UNESCO World Heritage site is under threat of extinction from a construction boom fed by Western oil companies pouring billions of dollars into the capital. Flouting a ban on all new development in Baku’s walled city, known to locals as Icheri Sheher, buildings which have stood for centuries are being torn down to make way for new office complexes and plush villas. They are built to meet demand from Western oil companies drilling in the nearby Caspian Sea, foreign embassies and wealthy locals, all ready to pay high rents to base themselves in Baku’s choicest piece of real estate. In 2003, UNESCO placed the Inner City on the List of World Heritage in Danger, citing damage from a November 2000 earthquake, poor conservation as well as “dubious” restoration efforts.
Luxor, Egypt: As the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the “world’s greatest open air museum.” The city is home to some of the greatest wonders of ancient Egypt, including the Temple Complex of Karnak and the Valley of the Kings, which houses the tombs of the pharaohs. William C.S. Remsen, a preservation architect, says as more people move into the area (which was once farmland) extra water is pumped in, causing water levels to rise. Since the temples are made out of porous stone, the water gets absorbed and leaves behind salt. When this salt crystallizes behind the stone, it causes the decorated surfaces of the temples to evaporate. The ancient monuments are also threatened by tourism, theft and floods that have damaged wall paintings and caused structural damage to many of the tombs.
Ice Fields of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: These massive pure white fields captured by Ernest Hemingway in his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” are literally disappearing. In 2002, Lonnie Thompson, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University, released a study that predicted global warming would wipe these fields out completely between 2015 and 2020. Data from the study show that 82% of the ice fields melted between 1912 and 2000. However, while global warming is cited as one culprit, most scientists claim that it alone cannot have caused such a dramatic change. The other factors behind the transformation remain a mystery.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia: According to heritage experts carrying out restoration work at the temple, which ranks as one of the largest religious ruins in the world, a plethora of new hotels, cashing in on the country’s rapid rise in tourist numbers, is sapping gallons of water from beneath nearby urban areas. They say this could upset the delicate foundations on which Angkor Wat sits and could lead to parts of it crumbling into sinkholes. The structures at Angkor Wat are built primarily out of sandstone, which the huge amount of foot traffic around the site is steadily eroding. In 1993, when Angkor was first added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the savage Khmer Rouge was still active in the area. Only 7,600 brave souls ventured to the temple complex that year. Since then, however, Cambodia has become “safe” in the eyes of the international community, and package tours have landed in fleets. In 2007, some two million tourists visited Cambodia, with half stopping at Angkor Wat. With tourist traffic continuing to increase by about 20 per cent a year, three million people are expected to visit the country in 2010.