UNESCO's danger list

Brian Lasenby/Shutterstock - From protected churches to endangered ecosystems and listed city centres, there are over 900 designated UNESCO World Heritage sites scattered across the world. You’d be forgiven for thinking that once a place has been awarded heritage status it will be preserved for ever, but you’d be wrong. UNESCO also has a danger list of 44 properties that are under threat from development,
climate change, warfare and both environmental and human interference. The danger list hit the headlines earlier this year when WWF-Australia’s Richard Leck named it “the list of shame” after it was revealed that the Great Barrier Reef is losing its coral at a terrifying rate and could be on the list by 2014 and once again this month when archaelogists voiced concerns that the world's only surviving Bronze Age metropolis in Pakistan is being corroded. And it isn’t only the usual suspects of rainforests and reefs that are in danger - from Liverpool’s Maritime Mercantile City to The Everglades in Florida, we’ve selected ten properties from the list that might not be around long enough for the future generations of travellers to see.

Belize Tourist Board - The marine patchwork of turquoise waters, pristine coastal lagoons, mangrove forests and sand cays that form Belize’s barrier reef stretches from the borders of Mexico to the edge of Guatemala. It the largest reef in the northern hemisphere and home to an entire ecosystem of endangered species from turtles and manatees to marine crocodiles. The reef has been inhabited and fished since the Mayans in 300 BC and has been home to both early Spanish explorers and 17th century pirates. If you fancy a swim in these crystal clear waters, though, then you’d better grab your snorkel gear sharpish as the reef has been on the danger list for the past four years. It was moved on to the list in 2009 when the sale and lease of public lands to developers lead to the destruction of the mangrove forests and damage to the delicate marine ecosystems.


Pecold/Shutterstock - When you think of Kosovo you’re more likely to think of the bitter conflict surrounding the border point between Serbia and Albania in the nineties, or the subsequent dismemberment of what was Yugoslavia, than you are precious monuments and churches. Serbian kings made their mark on Kosovo with formidable churches, monasteries and religious artefacts built on four major sites between the 13th and 17th centuries: the Dečani Monastery, the domed Patriarchate of Peć Monastery and the 13th and 14th-century frescoes of the Church of Holy Apostles and the church of the Holy Virgin of Ljevisa. The Medieval sites were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2004 and promptly moved onto the danger list in 2006 for a range of reasons, including a lack of legal status and political instability and an unsatisfactory state of conservation and maintenance.

 McCoy Wynne - Birthplace of The Beatles and home to two of the most successful football teams in Britain, you’re probably wondering how a thriving city like Liverpool made it onto the danger list. It may have an impressive list of modern accolades but it’s the city’s historic centre and waterfront that scored it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2004. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Liverpool’s docks were at the epicentre of one of the world’s most important¬ trading centres, playing a major role in the slave trade and the expansion of British Empire. But a lack of management, awareness and clearly established height restrictions on new building developments landed Liverpool’s waterfront on the danger list in 2012.