The World's most Endangered Monuments
Helloo!! Just got back from traversing through parts of the trans-himalyan belt. Absolutely awesome!!
On this journey, I was introduced to the 100 most endangered sites listed by the World Monuments Watch. Announced every two years by the World Monument´s Fund, the list "calls international attention to cultural heritage sites around the world threatened by neglect, vandalism, armed conflict, or natural disaster. Through the Watch, WMF fosters community support for the protection of endangered sites and attracts technical and financial resources to assist in their rescue. More than 75% of Watch sites have been saved or are well on their way, thanks to timely intervention."
The 2006 list includes monuments from 55 countries (spread over the seven continents). I personally had'nt heard of most of these sites and their illustrous backgrounds uptil now. Embarassingly, this included some sites in my own country!! Why don´nt you too check out your embarass quotient?
On the World Monuments Fund website, you can browse the 2006 sites list by country or explore the interactive map.
And for the serious travellors and history/heritage buffs, there are some interesting and frankly quite enlightening articles on the Newsweek website. As one of them points out "The number-one threat to tourist treasures, paradoxically, is tourism itself. The challenge is how to keep the world's most esteemed monuments from being loved to death."
Do you know which are the 7 most endangered wonders of the world? (Check it out)
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