In the United States, the Everglades National Park has been on the U.N.’s ‘World Heritage in Danger’ list since 2010. UNESCO is meeting this week and is expected to keep the troubled wetland on that list, despite decades of restoration efforts. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
Road tripping Florida offers unbeatable natural beauty, the country’s best amusement parks, and tasty eats—here’s how to plan the ultimate Florida road trip.
Established as a national park in 1934 and a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, Everglades National Park is much more than a mere swamp. Only an hour’s drive west from bustling Miami, the 1.5 million acres of the Everglades provides a place of sanctuary in nature for those looking for peace and quiet, as well as a front-row-seat view of wildlife from anhingas to alligators. Living on Earth’s Lizz Malloy went to check out the “River of Grass.”
These heritage sites are endangered. At risk from dangers like desert storms, deforestation, agricultural enrichment, and modern developments to name a few, the UNESCO has identified 54 sites to be put on the List of World Heritage in Danger. These places face the threat of irreparable damage resulting in the loss of natural or human history forever. Our list rounds up some of the best sites to visit before it’s too late.
It’s no secret that the United States is a wild place. There may be plenty of historic towns and sprawling metropolises, but most of the nation is still wilderness. Whether it’s rugged mountains, pristine forests or vast deserts, it’s quite easy to escape the city stress and rekindle your affinity with nature. Wild animals also find refuge in these rugged regions and in this post, we’ll feature a handful of the best places for wildlife watching in the USA.
Best Places for Wildlife Watching in the USA
From the Appalachian Mountains to the Florida swamps, Californian islands and Alaskan wilderness, the USA has countless places where wildlife thrives. And the beauty of all this is that the variety of animals you might encounter is immense. When visiting these places in the USA for wildlife watching, you can almost be certain to spot iconic wildlife such as buffalo, grizzly and black bears, dolphins and alligators.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The oldest national park in the world, Yellowstone National Park is one of North America’s finest wildlife watching destinations.
With many of the world’s amazing destinations under threat due to climate change and neglect, it’s not surprising that last-chance tourism is on the rise. So pack your bags, grab your camera, and head to one of these gorgeous destinations before it’s too late.
The Maldives
Last year, yet another study published in Nature determined that climate change has accelerated the rate at which the sea levels are rising. So it stands to reason that the destination most at risk is the lowest-lying country in the world, an island nation comprised of a series of atolls formed from coral in the Indian Ocean. Go now, while the Maldives are still a tropical paradise with year-round temperatures in the low 80s, crystalline waters, and beaches that glow in the dark.
Everglades National Park
The beautiful and unique wetland wilderness at the southern tip of Florida contains the Western Hemisphere’s largest mangrove ecosystem and largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie. It is home to an exceptional variety of wading birds, reptiles, and numerous threatened species, such as the Florida panther and manatee.
Source: Breathtaking Places to Visit Before They Disappear | Reader’s Digest
Earlier this month, the world’s last male northern white rhino gave the world a scare when an infected leg raised fears that he might have to be put down.
While Sudan, the rhino, is on the mend now, the scare was a reminder of the natural beauty the world is losing at a rapid pace.
Today, we take a look at 10 of the many natural wonders to experience before they disappear forever.
1: The Northern White Rhino in Kenya
The last of the northern white rhinos — one male named Sudan and two females named Najin and Patu — live at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia National Park in Kenya.
Conservationists and scientists are working on a way to try the IVF route to save the sub-species from extinction, largely caused by indiscriminate poaching for rhino horns, but the London-based Save the Rhino is not optimistic.
Everglades National Park is a World Heritage site, and it’s under siege from drought, invasive species and sea-level rise.
A report released in November 2017 highlighted exactly how threatened the park is. It came from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a group that advises the World Heritage, and it rated Everglades National Park’s conservation outlook “critical.”
WLRN’s Kate Stein spoke with Peter Shadie, a senior IUCN adviser, about the “critical” designation and why Everglades National Park was originally named a World Heritage site.
SHADIE: The only site in North America that’s ranked as critical is the Everglades. It’s global. There are 17 properties which were rated as critical in the outlook — 17 out of 241 [sites the IUCN evaluated]. Many of those are on the African continent and they reflect concerns with conflict, poaching and really serious loss of key species.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature says more than 60 sites are threatened.
The number of World Heritage sites being negatively impacted by climate change has nearly doubled in a mere three years.
A new report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature—the official advisory body on nature for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee—says the locations around the globe threatened by global warming has risen from 35 to 62 since the last study was completed.
The IUCN World Heritage Outlook 2—an update from a report issued in 2014—offers an assessment for the first time of the changes in the conservation prospects for all 241 natural World Heritage sites: iconic places such as The Great Barrier Reef and the Florida Everglades.
The report finds that one in four natural heritage sites face significant threats because of climate change.
At a Glance
The number of imperiled natural heritage sites has risen from 35 to 62 since 2014.
The report warns that the list is likely to grow unless measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gases.
The number of natural heritage sites imperiled by climate change has nearly doubled in three years, according to a new report released this week at the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
The report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature says the number of imperiled United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization sites that include coral reefs, glaciers and wetlands has risen from 35 to 62 of the 241 listed sites since 2014. This means one in four UNESCO natural sites are at risk, up from one in seven.
Hurricane Irma may have altered the ecosystem of the Everglades in Florida, restoring some of the dynamics that disappeared during decades of development.
When Hurricane Irma hit Florida, it blasted an estimated 3 to 10 feet of storm surge into the Everglades. Combined with the drenching rain, the storm may change the vegetation patterns of the enormous wetland and perhaps prod the people of South Florida to rethink how it lives with its water.
The Everglades, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has shrunk to about half of its original size since people started draining it for development and agriculture in the 1800s. The so-called River of Grass extends from Lake Okeechobee in Central Florida down to its southern tip at the Gulf of Mexico, and much of it is a national park.
As well as devastating Florida communities, Hurricane Irma blasted an estimated three to ten feet of storm surge into the Everglades. This “River of Grass” extends from Lake Okeechobee in central Florida down to its southern tip at the Gulf of Mexico, and much of it is a National Park. Host Steve Curwood asked University of Maryland hydrologist Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm how the hurricane’s storm surge and severe downpours, added to the steady rising of the seas, could affect this threatened ecosystem. Professor Miralles-Wilhelm says draining and channelizing the wetlands through decades of development weakened the Everglades’ resilience and ability to buffer storms.
The world is a wonderful place, full of tropical island paradises, majestic glaciers, and lush rain forests. Sadly, most of those places won’t be around forever. In fact, many of them will be gone way sooner than most people think. Luckily, no one reading this will be around in 100 years, so it won’t be any skin off our backs, but there are definitely more than a handful of places in this world that won’t be around in our grandkids’ lifetime.
The Maldives
The Maldives may be a sun-soaked paradise and popular vacation destination for those looking to get their island on, but the South Asian tropical nation is already well on its way to disappearing forever.
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