SPARING A THOUGHT FOR ENDANGERED SITES

Deep in the jungle of Xilitla, Mexico, hides a poet’s hallucination—a faded, phantasmagorical lost world of sculptures dreamt up in the 1940s by Edward James, a British visionary. Cement stairs twist skyward amid the thickets like a nautilus, giant hands wave silently from the ground and ornately sculpted arches provide passage to nowhere. Tropical plants seethe at every edge.

Known as Las Pozas (pictured), or “The Pools”, for its myriad dipping spots, this edenic enclave is slowly being absorbed by the landscape it inhabits, which recently earned it a spot on the World Monuments Fund’s biennial Watch List of at-risk sites. Spread across 47 countries, these 93 locations are chosen for both their cultural significance and the urgency of the threats they face from environmental damage, vandalism, tourism and urban sprawl.

“It’s a spotlight,” says the WMF's president, Bonnie Burnham, of the list, noting that the sites mentioned often earn renewed attention, funds and conservation support from public officials. Since 1996 the independent, New York-based WMF has spread $50m of its own donor funds among 242 of those listed—and has leveraged that money to pull in another $150m. “We want sites that are likely to make progress because they are on the Watch.”

New discoveries from this year’s batch include the wind-hammered desert castles of Khorezm, Uzbekistan (below right); the Wamala King’s collapsing burial tombs in Nansana, Uganda; and a dragon’s spine of ancient stone towers that twists over Chankillo, Peru. Buenos Aires’s gemlike (but presently defunct) Teatro Colón opera hall made the list, as did the graffiti-scarred Sanatorium Joseph Lemaire of Tombeek, Belgium (below left), and New Orleans’s weathered St Louis Cemetery No. 2.

“People are recognising that preservation has to be integrated into the larger environment,” says Erica Avrami, the WMF’s director of research and education. “It’s about the cityscape as an evolving organism, not just something you draw a ring around.”

Tension between new development and historic sites is everywhere. “There’s a trend toward modernisation in even the most sacrosanct cities, like Kyoto and Old Seville,” explains Burnham. “The old sites are disappearing rapidly because of the high land values around them.” Even those that survive physical change are in danger of losing the traditions that inform their character. By including them on the list, the WMF hopes to generate a larger discussion about how to deal with heritage issues in an urbanising world.

The organisation realises that tourists are drawn to these vanishing places, and welcomes them—as long as sites have the ability to support them. “Many of those on the Watch have to find a new use in order to survive, and a tourism economy is desirable for them,” Burnham points out. “But tourists need to realise how fragile the sites are. Most need work before they are ready.”

Increased awareness of the list’s impact led Peru, Spain and the Philippines to apply for (and nab) more spots this year, but countries without a conservation infrastructure may shy away from applying, fearing what they perceive as negative attention. “We’d like to see more participation from Africa and the Middle East,” says Burnham. “But there may not be as much of an incentive for them. Many of our government nominations are from smaller, poorer countries or provincial offices that need all the help they can get.”

And they do get help. Thanks to the onslaught of support generated by its appearance on the 2002 list, Japan’s historic Tomo-no-Ura fishing village was just saved from the interruption of a proposed highway, while Cyprus’s Famagusta Walled City, listed in 2008, has finally begun documenting its historic buildings. After the ravishing (and ravaged) Santa Prisca Parish Church scored its spot in 2000, the WMF issued a matching-funds challenge to residents in Taxco de Alarcón, Mexico, who had long hoped to save it. They suddenly coughed up $250,000.

“Some of our greatest successes are the ones that happen when WMF isn’t even directly involved,” notes Avrami. “They’re where communities get excited about their shared history and make change happen on their own.”

The complete list of endangered monuments can be found here.

~ MELINDA DODD

Images credit: World Monuments Fund