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A new guide book for travellers details the sites most at risk from developers and climate change writes Amelia Hill.
The first guidebook of 'last chance saloon' holidays has been published for travellers who want to visit the most endangered tourist destinations across the world. Frommer's 500 Places To See Before They Disappear provides a list of sites where it is still possible to see rare and vulnerable animal species, special landscapes and unique cultural sights in their unspoilt glory.
Co-author Holly Hughes, a former executive editor of Fodor's Travel Publications, said: "The devastation wrought by climate change and direct man-made interference is familiar to all of us. But this book is a carefully chosen list of last-chance destinations that eco-conscious travellers can enjoy - if they move sharpish - for possibly the last time."
According to Hughes and co-author Larry West, an award-winning investigative journalist once nominated for a Pulitzer prize, more than 20 of Britain's best-loved landmarks - and lesser-known gems - merit a place in their collection. The Tower of London and Greenwich Maritime Museum, for example, are at risk from rising ocean levels which will lead the Thames to flood its banks.
With 500 threatened destinations to choose from, she suggests heading to the Everglades in southern Florida. Filled with rare species, this ecosystem is degenerating with alarming rapidity. Already half has been lost to agricultural and urban development. Dwindling water levels and pollution have severely compromised what remains. "The number of bird species has fallen by 93 per cent and many of the fish and even the alligators who remain show high mercury levels," said Hughes.
The Dead Sea may only be a tourist option for three more decades. By then, says Hughes, "it could be completely dry, thanks to the diverting of the rivers that feed it". Marine life around the Falkland Islands is under severe threat from dumping by sanitation companies and ships. The Nazca lines in Peru, one of the world's most intriguing ancient sites, face destruction as roads are built and global warming and deforestation cause floods and mudslides. Also under threat is New York's Little Italy. "Though a vestige of the area, celebrated in films from The Godfather to Mean Streets, has been preserved, it is being gradually squeezed by the burgeoning Chinatown and SoHo districts."
In Britain, people could visit some ancient architectural treasures which, she says, risk falling into dereliction because of a lack of funding.
Strawberry Hill, Sir Horace Walpole's folly in Twickenham, west London, which sparked the Gothic revival in the early 19th century, is struggling to raise £8 million. One of the oldest parish churches in England, St Mary's, in Stow in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, needs £3 million for renovations. Another London landmark, Battersea power station, becomes more derelict every day as government, developers and local community boards wrangle over its future.
Hughes also urges a pilgrimage to Kentish Town, north London, to visit Little Green Street, one of the last intact Georgian streets in London. "This perfect slice of Regency London was celebrated by the poet John Betjeman and used as the setting for numerous music and photo shoots. It survived the Blitz, but the inexorable march of gentrification is another thing altogether," said Hughes. The Holderness coast, in East Yorkshire, loses nearly 6ft a year due to rising sea levels caused by climate change and man-made interference, she said.
West points out that the guidebook's message is not all gloom. "Some of the destinations are already on the road to being saved, usually because they've been championed by preservationists," he said. "And even in the cases where a site has been lost, or irrevocably damaged, it often has become a rallying point for activists, inspiring them to fight on so that the same mistakes aren't made again. The planet is poorer every time we allow something beautiful to die."
