Everglades to be put back on U.N. endangered list?

by Kraig Becker on

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is meeting with a task force charged with overseeing the restoration of the Florida Everglades this week. He intends to tell them that the Obama administration will ask the United Nations World Heritage Committee to put the national park back on its endangered list when the committee meet in Spain this week.

Two years ago, in what has been viewed as a controversial decision, the Bush administration requested that the U.N. remove the Everglades from the list. At the time, the Department of the Interior defended the decision by citing progress being made in protecting the region and the species that lived there, despite the fact that the restoration program had failed to meet milestones, and was billions over budget.

The current administration believes restoring the Everglades National Park to the list of endangered places will send a strong signal to environmentalists that they are committed to the protecting the environment. If restored to the list, the park will join the Galapagos Islands, the Old City of Jerusalem and Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley as the other World Heritage Sites considered to be in danger. The Everglades were originally added to the list back in 1993 when the area was damaged by Hurricane Andrew and the effects of prolonged exposure to water pollution became known.

Despite the issues effecting the park, the Everglades remains a popular tourist destination. There are more than 156 miles of canoe/kayak and hiking trails, with 47 designated campsites, inside the 2500 square miles of subtropical forest that define the parks boundaries. The Park Service reports that over one million visitors experience the Everglades each year.

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How great is the Great Wall of China? Very!

by Tom Johansmeyer on

I bet you thought the name said it all. A recent survey by of this World Heritage site – billed as “technologically advanced” – puts the original length of the wall at 5,500 miles, much further than the previous estimate of 3,700 miles. That’s a difference of almost 50 percent!

This effort took more than two years of surveying with GPS tools, infrared technology and other mapping techniques, and the outcome is the most complete view of the wall ever seen. Since perfectly restored pieces comprise no more than 20 percent of the original wall, this new perspective will help with efforts at conservation.

Erosion and war impeded protection in the past, but the current threat is construction, as China embraces (parts of) a capitalist economy. In some cases, roads exist in places once occupied by the Great Wall of China. Almost a third of the structure has disappeared completely.

More research is on the agenda, with completion expected to come in 2010.

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WHS tentative list: Places to love — Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

by Catherine Bodry on


For the Gadling series “World Heritage Site new “Tentative List”: Places to Love” we covered the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites were not posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list — this is the last site covered.

Number: 12

Name of Site: Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Location of site: Georgia/Florida

Reason for importance (in a nutshell): This site embodies the Okefenokee Swamp, a large, intact wetland that houses the headwaters of two rivers. It also has undisturbed deposits of peat. The vast, saucer-shaped bog was once part of the ocean floor, and the swamp is one of the oldest and most well-preserved freshwater areas is the US, according to GORP.

Catherine’s take: It’s got more going for it than a name that’s fun to say; intact wetlands are hard to come by these days. The photo I found was so beautiful I had to make it larger than usual. And besides, if we run out of oil we can just burn the peat, right?

WHS Tentative List: Place to Love — San Antonio Franciscan Missions, Texas

by Catherine Bodry on

For the Gadling series “World Heritage Site new “Tentative List”: Places to Love” we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list.

Name of site: San Antonio Franciscan Missions

Location: San Antonio, Texas

Reason for importance (in a nutshell): According to the National Park Service website, the five Franciscan missions, which are spread around San Antonio, “are a remarkable concentration of surviving structures that superbly represent the Spanish colonial influence in this part of the New World. The religious, economic and technological systems of the missionaries created settled communities that became the basis of the region’s ethnically diverse society.” The most well-known of the five, the Alamo, was established in 1718 as a way station between missions.

Catherine’s take: We have so few structures in the US that are truly old. And while 350 years may be positively newborn to a European, that time frame marks a lot of history for the New World.

WHS new “Tentative List”: Places to Love–Dayton Aviation Sites

by Grant Martin on

For the Gadling series “World Heritage Site new “Tentative List”: Places to Love” we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list.

Number 2

Name of Site: Dayton Aviation Sites

Location: All over Dayton, in Southwest Ohio

Reason for importance in a nutshell: In short: Dayton is the birthplace of aviation. The Wright Brothers, pioneers and innovators in aircraft construction and control based their operation out of the back of their bicycle shop in West Dayton, Ohio. Landmarks such as their workshop, Wright and Wright printing and Huffman Prairie Flying field highlight their involvement in the industry, while other aviation tidbits such as America’s first Air Force Base are included in the heritage site.

Grant’s Take: It doesn’t take much to impress this airplane nerd. While I’m generally hesitant to set foot in the great state of Ohio (being from Michigan and all), the Dayton Aviation Sites have my interest in the Buckeye State emphatically piqued. If you do find yourself in the Midwest and are hankering for a bit of history, consider stopping in for a tour; you can check out a lot of information here. Alternatively, if you’re on a long Skybus layover, cancellation, or are visiting Jamie Rhein, consider taking the trip over from Columbus — it’s only fifty miles away!