Tourism, climate change, redevelopment and nature threaten the existence of some of the world’s most amazing sites. But it's not all doom and gloom.
Many incredible places and monuments have been saved from destruction and preserved for future generations, thanks to heritage bodies, government intervention, crowdfunding or community activism.
Click through to discover some special places that are still standing, against the odds…
Built in 1900, this historic lighthouse perched on a sand dune on the northern Danish coast was set to topple into the North Sea. After decades of being battered by the wind, waves and sand, the cliff on which the lighthouse stood had been eaten away.
Originally, the lighthouse stood 660 feet (200m) from the sea, but erosion reduced that by seven feet (2m) a year, until it stood perilously close to the edge.
Once a popular tourist attraction on North Jutland island's striking coastline, the local authority decided to move the historic structure inland to save it from its briny doom.
The amazing feat took place in October 2019, when a team of experts and community volunteers put the lighthouse on wheels and rails to slide it some 260 foot (80m) away from the North Sea.
Stumbled upon by a teenager and his dog in the 1940s, the Lascaux cave in south-west France’s Vézère valley region is filled with remarkable prehistoric paintings and engravings which are over 17,000 years old. It was opened to the public but closed in 1963 to preserve the ancient art.
Hordes of tourists were taking their toll on the priceless walls, with their heat, humidity and carbon dioxide threatening to damage the paintings. Mould and lichen had begun forming on the artwork at damaging levels.
The paintings were restored and a monitoring programme put in place, but the UNESCO World Heritage Site remains closed to preserve its integrity. While visitors are not permitted into the original cave complex, two replicas allow people to experience the incredible prehistoric artwork of horses, deer and mammoths.
Lascaux IV, a spectacular full-scale replica, complete with recreated cave atmosphere, opened at Le Centre International de l'Art Pariétal in Montignac in 2016.
In the 1970s, Tasmania’s celebrated rainforests and wild rivers were under threat. Government plans to flood part of the Franklin River to create a dam would have drowned some of its native forest and reduced critical wildlife habitats.
The plan divided public opinion, leading to mass protests and years of wrangling. In 1983, incoming prime minister Bob Hawke pledged to stop the dam. UNESCO also included the Western Tasmanian Wilderness National Parks on the World Heritage List – the area was later extended.
Another controversial dam project was proposed in Egypt in the 1960s. A dam on the Nile, just south of the city of Aswan, threatened to drown many priceless antiquities of the Nubian Valley, including the rock-hewn twin temples of Abu Simbel.
UNESCO launched its first-ever collaborative international rescue effort to save the ancient monuments. Entire sites were moved, piece by piece, to higher ground. Pictured here is the cavity in the original rock face after the temples had been dismantled and moved to a new site.
The creation of the Aswan High Dam and the Lake Nasser reservoir aimed to prevent destructive flooding, generate power and improve irrigation. But it put many treasures at risk and displaced tens of thousands of people.
In a huge collective effort between the Egyptian government and other countries, Abu Simbel was moved and meticulously reassembled above the lake. The collective feat was the catalyst for the creation of the UNESCO World Heritage list.
A Sydney landmark narrowly escaped demolition after a successful preservation campaign. The Sirius building, a 1970s public housing complex in Millers Point, was at danger, due to redevelopment.
The Brutalist icon was placed on the World Monuments Watch list in 2018 and a public campaign was launched to save it and see it receive heritage status. While the status was not granted, in 2019, the state government announced that Sirius would be refurbished, rather than demolished.
A bitterly fought battle to save Hasankefy – one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world – from being flooded by a controversial new dam was unsuccessful. But in a glimmer of hope, several of the city’s ancient relics were saved by the Turkish government.
This includes the 800-year-old Artuklu Hamam. In a strenuous operation, the bathhouse was wheeled out of the ill-fated city, which is carved into a plateau of the Tigris River in south-eastern Anatolia.
Another of the eight historical monuments saved from the controversial Ilısu Dam project was the town’s 15th-century Zeynel Bey Mausoleum. It was relocated to an open-air museum near New Hasankeyf, where some displaced residents were reluctantly relocated, as the rising river submerged their homes.
Sadly, the colossal dam project will flood numerous Neolithic caves and the ruins of a 900-year-old bridge – among other significant historical sites of the ancient Silk Road settlement.
Lying off Belize’s Caribbean coastline, the Belize Barrier Reef is the world’s second largest barrier reef system. With hundreds of mangrove cays and sandy islands around the reef and its atolls, it's home to endangered species such as marine turtles, manatees and the American marine crocodile, as well as stunning corals.
However, the UNESCO World Heritage Site was inscribed on the ‘In Danger list’ for almost 10 years due to the irreversible damage caused by harmful coastal construction and oil exploration.
In a remarkable turnaround, the extraordinarily diverse ecosystem was removed from the list in 2018, after landmark conservation measures were enacted by Belize’s government. These included becoming the first country in the world to put a moratorium on all offshore oil exploration and drilling in its waters.
It extended its no-fishing zones and announced a ban on single-use plastic and Styrofoam products in 2019. While climate change remains a constant threat, the reef is enjoying the benefits of better protection.
A striking ancient extinct volcano, Mount Kenya is the second highest peak in Africa. With its forested middle slopes, lower lying foothills and surrounding savannahs, the national park has a high level of biodiversity. It also lies along the migrating route of the African elephant population.
UNESCO inscribed the park in 1997 after serious concerns around illegal logging and marijuana cultivation were addressed by local authorities. Increased patrols, community awareness projects and training of forest guards improved the management and integrity of the site.
A refuge for the greater one-horned rhinoceros and the Bengal tiger, among other endangered species, Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park faced a worrisome threat in the early 1990s.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee questioned the environmental impact of the Rapti River Diversion Project, which threatened critical habitats for the rhinos. The Nepalese government revised its assessment and abandoned the project.
Human activity once again threatened the sanctity of a critical marine habitat. The Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino in Mexico, the last pristine reproduction lagoon for the Pacific grey whale, was put at risk in the late 1990s by plans to enlarge an existing salt factory to a commercial scale inside the sanctuary.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee alerted the Mexican government to the threats posed, which ultimately led it to refuse permission for the saltworks in 2000.
The ancient and beautiful Kedarnath Temple in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand has faced numerous challenges over the centuries. But it remains standing.
Pictured here is the remote Hindu temple, which is dedicated to Lord Shiva, after catastrophic monsoonal floods inundated the region and washed away hundreds of homes and roads and killed thousands in 2013.
Remarkably, the beautiful mountain shrine escaped damage after a huge boulder got stuck behind it and diverted most of the water from hitting the building. It’s not the first time the temple has faced extreme weather – according to a study by geologists, it survived being buried under the snow for almost 400 years.
They point to several yellow lines which were formed by glaciers. It’s thought the temple and neighbouring area was entirely covered in snow from the 1400s to 1700s, a period known as the Little Ice Age.
In a landmark decision, the Thai government closed one of its most celebrated beaches in 2018. Idyllic Maya Bay in the Phi Phi Islands went from a tranquil and pristine beach to world-famous landmark after it appeared in The Beach, Danny Boyle’s 2000 movie adaptation of Alex Garland’s novel.
At its peak 5,000 to 6,000 people flocked to the sands daily and an estimated 80% of the bay’s coral was destroyed due to pollution from tourism.
Marine biologists worked to restore the coral and various steps have been taken to help preserve the environment. These include capping visitor numbers and the construction of an elevated boardwalk from Loh Samah Bay, where there will be a pier to stop boats from mooring on the beach.
The beach is now open to tourists for most of the year – but closes for a two-month conservation period each August and September.
The world’s oldest bridge, found in Tello in southern Iraq, will be preserved for future generations, thanks to an emergency heritage management project led by the British Museum. The bridge at Tello, which was rediscovered in 1929, was built in the third millennium BC at the entrance of the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu (pictured here).
More than 130 feet (40m) long, up to 32 feet (10m) wide, the bridge was constructed with mud-fired bricks. A team of British Museum archaeologists and Iraqi heritage professionals are working to restore the bridge and other ancient sites in the region.
The extraordinary rock-hewn churches of Lalibela sit at an altitude of 8,200 feet (2,500m) in Ethiopia’s highlands and are highly vulnerable to the climate. In 2007, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and UNESCO partnered to erect several giant protective screens above several of them, including one on the Church of Saint Emmanuel (pictured).
The shelters, which protect them from the erosive effects of rain and sunshine, are controversial but have helped maintain the integrity of the precarious holy sites. However, the project’s goal is to create a sustainable framework for preservation at Lalibela that will make the construction of more shelters unnecessary and render the current ones redundant.
“Skilled craftspeople and appropriate preservation techniques will ensure the site is preserved into the future,” according to the WMF.
Significant buildings associated with the historic civil rights movement in the US were granted official protection by the National Park Service in 2017. President Obama established the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, which protects a four-block section of the city.
This covers sites including the 16th Street Baptist Church (pictured), Kelly Ingram Park, the A.G. Gaston Motel, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Bethel Baptist Church.
Discover more of America's most important National Monuments
It’s hard to believe that one of the world’s grandest stations, St Pancras in north London, was mothballed and bound for demolition. The station, with its towering neo-Gothic façade, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1868, had its heyday in the golden age of rail travel.
But in post-war London, St Pancras and the adjoining grand West Midlands Hotel fell into decline. In the 1950s and 1960s, British Railways tried to close and demolish the Victorian building several times.
After a successful campaign, fronted by the poet Sir John Betjeman, St Pancras was granted Grade I-listed status in 1967, just days before its demolition date. However, the station continued to be neglected until it was redeveloped in 1996 – becoming the home of the high-speed Eurostar service.
The restored station was officially opened by the late HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2007, complete with a bronze statue of its saviour Betjeman sitting on the upper level.
Another inadvertent poster child for the effects of overtourism and unregulated development is the little outcrop of Boracay. The Philippines authorities dramatically closed the once-idyllic resort in 2018, after its president Rodrigo Duterte declared the island a “cesspool” due to sewage problems.
Here, green algae can be seen on one of the island's bays, which drew hordes of visitors drawn to its unspoiled beaches and party atmosphere.
Boracay was closed for a six-month rehabilitation period, which included a major rubbish clear up and upgrades to sewerage. It reopened with some strict measures in place to help safeguard the resort.
It's hoped that restrictions on numbers and various other sustainability measures, including the ban of single-use plastic items and no smoking or drinking policies on its beaches, will limit environmental damage and preserve Boracay’s undeniable beauty.
As ferocious bushfires raged across parts of Australia in early 2020, a covert mission was undertaken to save a secret grove of Wollemi pines, which predate the dinosaurs. Firefighters were enlisted to save the rare species in a remote grove within the Wollemi National Park.
The precious prehistoric pines were thought to be extinct until they were discovered here in 1994. The successful rescue mission involved aircraft dropping water bombs and winching a team down to set up an irrigation system.
With its colourful, ornate façades and thatched fishing cottages, Barrio del Cabanyal-Canyamelar is full of character. But the old fisherman’s quarter was put in jeopardy when a planned road project linking Valencia's city centre with the port threatened to demolish a large part of the neighbourhood.
However, it was added to the World Monuments Watch list in 2012 and the decision was made to stop the project. The local council later announced that €22 million ($25m) would go to rehabilitate the neglected area.
People power came to the rescue of a swath of wilderness in British Columbia, which was set to be deforested in 2019. The community effort, spearheaded by the B.C. Parks Foundation, saw C$3 million ($2.2m) crowdfunded.
This allowed the charity to buy nearly 2,000 acres of land in Princess Louisa Inlet, north-west of Vancouver, from a private owner. The foundation continues its work to protect the inlet and the surrounding area.
UNESCO launched an international safeguarding campaign in 1972 to restore Indonesia’s remarkable Buddhist temple Borobudur. Constructed in the 8th and 9th centuries, during the reign of the Syailendra Dynasty in central Java, the vast mound-like structure was abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle.
Hidden by vegetation and volcanic ash, it was brought to the attention of the British ruler of Java, Sir Thomas Raffles, in 1814. A successful restoration of the dilapidated temple was completed in 1983, followed by a second in 2010, after the eruption of Mount Merapi caused further damage.
One of Greece’s most significant classical sites, the sanctuary of Delphi in Mount Parnassus, central Greece, was under threat in the 1980s. When the site was nominated for UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1987, plans were afoot for an aluminium plant to be built near the scenic site.
UNESCO asked the Greek government to find another location for the plant, which it did. The ancient sanctuary of Delphi joined the list of sites protected for future generations to enjoy.
Now take a look at famous landmarks that were almost destroyed