Within our lifetimes, several great tourist spots could well vanish or be so spoiled as to not be worth the effort needed to visit.

“Disappearing Destinations: 37 Places in Peril and What Can Be Done to Help Save Them” takes a serious look around the globe and finds much deterioration at such well-known sites as Machu Picchu, the Yangtze River Valley in China, the Austrian Alps—the Alps!!—and the Galapagos chain of islands, among many others.

The hundreds of thousands of tourists who have made the trek to see the ruins of Machu Picchu are wearing down the stones; China’s pell-mell rush to provide power to its vast population and strengthen its economy is flooding out hundreds of towns and cities, drowning archaeological treasures, permanently altering the flow of rivers and forcing the relocation of millions of Chinese citizens. The glaciers in the Alps are melting away.

But rather than focus exclusively on the loss and harm so evident in many of these destinations, authors Kimberly Lisagor and Heather Hansen have chosen to show us what local people are doing to try to preserve their treasures. Of course, some are more successful than others.

In Puerto Rico, bioluminescent organisms, known as dinoflagellates, fill Mosquito Bay and Laguna Grande. Tourists head out by kayak at night to float in the bay’s warm waters and enjoy the stunning colors beneath the surface. But there used to be a third spot in Puerto Rico, Laparguera bay. In the 1960s, outsiders discovered its qualities, a building boom ensued and tour boats filled the waters. By the late 1990s, the boats had stirred enough sediment that the dinoflagellates had been destroyed. Too much sediment meant not enough light. The creatures/plants died. Marine biologists and academics are working to curb overdevelopment. Tourists are encouraged to think about ways to protect the bay and local leaders are trying to limit the amount of light used at night to keep from changing the balance of dark and light needed by the dinoflagellates.

It is quite often the case that what draws people to a remote site ends up being the thing that kills its value. Machu Picchu, after sitting untouched for hundreds of years, was revealed to the modern world back in 1911. In recent years, the tiny towns near it have turned themselves into tourist centers, drawing ever more visitors eager to hike the paths—or take buses—to the ancient Inca site. Built to accommodate perhaps 700 people, the site draws hundreds more people than that per day, many carrying walking sticks that poke holes, lean on ancient walls, sit on old walls, march up and down old staircases. Local conservationists are doing their best to limit the damage. Fewer buses can get as close; efforts are being made to slow the development of buildings and those that do go up are often more willing to try to go green. Limitations are always touchy, of course, especially those pushed by outsiders. “It’s not right for the local people to have to cede their interests and for just wealthy businessmen to profit,” someone from the World Monuments Fund says.

Other areas, such as the Amazon, are in danger because of economic interests, too. Loggers want to keep stripping away valuable wood and those who oppose their efforts have often been killed though conservationists are making some headway in some areas. In the Austrian Alps, tourist spots at lower snowline levels could face economic disaster as the snow melts and the line moves to high elevations, sending more people higher into the mountains. The harvesting of minerals from the Dead Sea in Israel and the increasing use of waters needed to fill the underground aquifers that feed the sea is drying it up. In the last 50 years, the sea’s surface area has shrunk by a third. Local conservationists continue to try to limit development and discourage mineral extraction.

The authors make a good case for disastrous decisions that are destroying these sites. It’s obvious that trying to change practices when money and people’s livelihoods are involved is quite daunting, if not nearly impossible. Still, the authors want us to know and, perhaps, we’ll be able to help save these treasures before it is too late.

The sites, by region, are:
US: Appalachia; Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska; Cascades and Mount Rainier, Washington; Casco Bay, Maine; Everglades, Florida; Glacier National Park, Montana; Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Inner and Outer Banks, North Carolina; Napa Valley, California; Oahu, Hawaii, Rio Grande; Yellowstone National Park.

Canada: Banks Island, Northwest Territories; Hudson Bay, Manitoba and Nunavut; Inside Passage, British Columbia.

Caribbean: Bioluminescent Bays, Puerto Rico;
Roatan, Honduras; Turks and Caicos Islands

South America: Amazon Basin; Aysen, Patagonia, Chile; Chacaltaya, Bolivia; Galapagos, Ecuador; Machu Picchu, Peru

Europe and the Middle East: The Alps; Boreal Forest, Lapland, Finland; Canary Islands, Spain; Danube River and Delta; Dead Sea, Israel and Jordan; Venice, Italy;

Africa: Congo Basin, Central Africa; Maasailand, Kenya; Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania; Timbuktu, Mali.

Asia/Pacific Islands: Everest National Park, Nepal; Tuvalu and Maldives; Yangtze River Valley, China; Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

The book includes a list of travel resources and organizations trying to change policies, along with just a few photos and maps.

I don't know if the large number of US sites is an indication that we're destroying the environment faster or just something that's easier for us to see. Time will tell, won't it?

Recommended: Yes