[MSN] Global warming, war, development threaten historic sites

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Global warming, war, development threaten historic sites
06 Jun 2007 17:10:19 GMT
Source: Reuters

More  By Tim McLaughlin

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - Bombs in Iraq, better commutes in Ireland and
melting ice caps are threatening the world's architectural and cultural
gems, a nonprofit group said on Wednesday as it named 100 endangered
monuments.

The World Monuments Fund's list for 2008 for the first time included climate
change as a hazard for some of the world's great historic sites.

Surging development and commercialism, along with political conflict, also
pose risk to sites such as the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem.

"On this list, man is indeed the real enemy," said Bonnie Burnham, president
of the fund. "But just as we have caused the damage in the first place, we
have the power to repair it."

The group said Peru's Machu Picchu is threatened by unchecked tourism and
St. Petersburg's skyline will be changed forever if Gazprom's planned
skyscraper is built for the state-controlled gas export monopoly.

Tara Hill in Ireland, considered a sacred landscape, is now threatened by
the development of a highway meant to ease the commute from Dublin. Canada's
Herschel Island, situated on the edge of the Yukon and home to ancient Inuit
sites, could be washed away in melting permafrost, the group said.

Meanwhile, the war in Iraq has put that country's entire cultural heritage
at grave risk, the nonprofit group said.

"The archeological sites of Iraq are being looted at an alarming rate and
the loss is catastrophic," said Michelle Berenfeld, program manager at the
fund. "Unlike objects in museums -- for which there is at least some record
of their existence and in most cases where they came from -- objects that
are stolen out of the ground are completely lost, forever.

"In Iraq, where much of these archeological sites date to the earliest
civilizations on the planet, the physical remains of those cultures are the
main sources of information we have about them, so stealing them is like
tearing out the pages of a history book that can never be rewritten,"
Berenfeld said.

Since 1996, the fund has made more than 500 grants totaling more than $47
million to sites in 74 countries.

While Burnham said the fund cannot be a policeman, it can raise public
awareness, which has acted as leverage for funding from other sources. The
group said its funds have drawn more than $124 million from other sources.

The New York-based group said more than 75 percent of endangered sites on
previous lists had been rescued or were well on the way to being preserved.

The complete 2008 list can be viewed at www.worldmonumentswatch.org.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06398732.htm

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