Humans built the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and a lot more since, and by God we’re gonna knock ‘em down again if they get in the way of money to be made. Earlier this year Newsweek magazine compiled a list of the world’s Endangered Wonders.

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Dating back to the 14th century BC, the Luxor temple complex on the west bank of the Nile River – which includes the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, more than 40 temples and the tombs of thousands of nobles – is threatened not only by the ravages of tourism and theft, but by the Nile itself. The construction of the Aswan Dam 40 years ago has caused salt to build up in the newly fertile soil around the temples, eroding their ancient foundations and filling many tombs with water.

The World Monuments Fund is currently devising a management plan for the site, and hopes to give the complex its biggest renovation since Alexander the Great.

The largest ancient settlement in Mesopotamia was built by King Nebuchadnezzar, of “hanging gardens” fame. Since the ruins were uncovered at the turn of the 20th century, artefacts have been removed, damaged and contaminated. Saddam Hussein installed a giant self-portrait there and US troops built trenches and crushed ancient roads. A recent British Museum report warns that Iraq lacks the resources to restore the site and urges an international effort.

Home to one of the most diverse collections of marine life in the world, the Coral Triangle extends from the waters of eastern Indonesia to Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, parts of Malaysia and the Solomon islands. More than 3,000 species of fish and 600 varieties of coral – a full 75 per cent of those known to science – have been found there.

But this ecosystem faces a growing threat from overfishing as well as destructive fishing, in which explosives or poisons are used to kill the fish, not only depleting the stock but also permanently destroying their habitat. Highly desirable species like grouper and Napoleon wrasse have already been fished to near extinction. Rising sea temperatures have also increased periods of coral bleaching, which kills the reefs.

The ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu is in danger of becoming a victim of its own popularity. Built around 1460 and discovered by American historian Hiram Bingham in 1911, the breathtaking and well-preserved mountain ruins have become Peru’s most popular tourist attraction, drawing half a million visitors every year.

The site’s 200 buildings, located in a geological fault zone, are in a precarious position to begin with. Constant foot traffic has made matters worse, wearing down and destabilising the ancient stone foundations. Development near the site is exacerbating the problem of landslides, which threaten to dislodge Machu Picchu from its alpine perch.

To stem the tide, Peru recently limited the number of visitors to 500 per day and closes the site for one month every year to repair damaged trails. But that may be too little too late.

It might not seem possible for an entire country to sink, but that is exactly what is happening to the Maldives, a nation of 12,000 islands that contain some of the richest marine life in the world.

With more than 80 per cent of its land less than a metre above sea level, the Maldives are particularly at risk from the rising sea levels caused by global warming. The 2004 tsunami, which devastated the country’s infrastructure, has already erased some tiny atolls and the country’s maps have been redrawn.
Conservationists hope to prevent further erosion by regrowing damaged coral reefs.

Almost since it was settled in 452, Venice has been sinking at a rate of more than one centimetre a century. The African plate on which Italy sits is slipping beneath the European plate, causing the Adriatic Sea to rise. Heavy-industry workers pumping groundwater from below the city and huge tidal wakes left by freighters and cruise ships have added to the rising water. And now Venice is too broke to do much about it.

The oldest parts of China’s Great Wall were built in the fifth century BC, but today nearly two-thirds of the wall has been destroyed by erosion, crass commercialism and unchecked development. With the 2008 Olympics looming, China is more interested in progress than preservation.

When Ernest Hemingway wrote “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, a holiday outing was the last thing he had in mind. Who could have known that this classic tale about a failed writer dying of gangrene in the shadow of Africa’s tallest mountain would spark a stampede?

Every year, some 10,000 vacationers huff their way to the 5,896-metre peak that untold tour operators have flogged with Hemingway’s majestic words: “Wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun.”

So it’s poetic justice of sorts that the travel industry’s purloined icon is melting. Thanks to global warming and deforestation, the millennial snowcap that was said to cover King Solomon’s tomb is receding. Scientists say that within 15 years, Kilimanjaro’s storied glaciers will be history.

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An article by Mac Margolis from the April 10-17, 2006 issue of
Newsweek International:

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.

“Tourism carries a tremendous potential that must be acknowledged as essential for the future of world heritage,” says Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund (WMF). “But without proper management we can easily get out of control.”

For all Hurricane Wilma’s wrath, patching Cancún back together will be easy compared with taming the monster that the tourist economy has unleashed. The seven million visitors a year who descend on this mega-resort and surrounding patches of the Mexican Caribbean coast already represent a conservation nightmare, straining water supply, sewers and marine life.

And it’s not just Mexico. Conservation International reckons that “unsustainable tourism” poses the main threat to half the cultural heritage sites in Latin America and the Caribbean, and to one in five sites in Asia and the Pacific. Cambodia’s once-remote Angkor temples now receive a million visitors a year; the Taj Mahal is subject to seven million.

Rising prosperity in the developing world, more and more elderly on the move, and cheap flights to anywhere will only hasten the human flood. China alone reported a staggering 1.1 billion domestic tourists in 2004.

Our wanderlust is not solely to blame, however. Popular tourist destinations have been hit in the last few years by glacier-withering global warming, an epic tidal wave and a harem of tropical storms in the Caribbean. Worse, avian flu is on the loose.

Before leaving home the future holidaymaker may be obliged to consult not only the exchange rate and the Weather Channel but the Tsunami Warning Center, Jane’s Terrorism Watch Report (”your daily update on terrorist activities worldwide”) and Citigroup’s Pandemic Sensitivity Index.

It is a daunting task. The WMF list of the 100 most endangered world heritage sites spans 55 countries. Topping the list: Iraq – not the Iraq Museum or the Al Askariya shrine, but the entire country. Never mind the obvious threats, like terrorism, war or sectarian strife. Forces like global warming pose subtler challenges.

The United Nations University recently reported that the number of annual catastrophes provoked by “extreme weather” and water-related emergencies has tripled since the 1970s, while economic damage increased sixfold.

Managing the onslaught is now a topic of fierce debate.
“Sometimes it takes coming to the brink of loss to make people recognise what they value,” says Burnham. Listing endangered sites helps raise their visibility and rally local support, but can also backfire by unleashing more tourists for a final antediluvian glimpse. Steeper admission prices help, but are blatantly biased toward travellers with deeper pockets.

Some experts are turning to crowd engineering, such as timed tickets, a technique that many museums and Disney World mastered years ago. Unesco’s World Heritage Centre channels money to safeguard sites, while the WMF works with local governments, civic groups and the private sector to restore imperiled monuments.

The debate is hardly academic. By now it’s apparent that travellers may be spooked, delayed or detoured, but not deterred. Despite the chain of calamities, more people than ever left home on holiday last year, and experts are confident the numbers will continue to grow. A world awash in tourists can be a curse for its endangered treasures, or a source of funds to save them. Getting the balance right could be the difference between future generations beholding the living wonders of the world, and merely reading about them in a story book.

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If you’re still wondering:

* Ancient Wonders
* Mediaeval Wonders
* Natural Wonders
* Underwater Wonders
* Modern Wonders
* Forgotten Wonders
* “New” Wonders