There’s a lot of coverage in the media about threats to different ecosystems around the world—not to mention the planet-wide threat of global warming—but except on rare occasions, the threats facing irreplaceable cultural heritage sites tend to garner much less attention. “Coral reefs, the Amazon, and polar bears are getting a lot more press than […]
Across global civilizations the axiom “to the victor goes the spoils” has ruled nation building and enhanced museum collections. Colonial expansion, imperialism and war have been the basis for many of the cultural collections currently housed in national museums and archives around the world. Despite anger on the part of countries that lost cultural treasures, […]
Iran does not top most lists of sustainable travel destinations, but the country’s isolation may have unwittingly made it a pillar of responsible tourism. “Iran has not been McDonaldized yet,” said Jerry Dekker, a former humanities professor who has led over 30 cultural tours for Americans with Iran Traveler and lived there for 13 years. […]
Logging and the development of an ecotourism resort threaten Australia’s Recherche Bay, where one of the earliest known meetings between Tasmania’s Aboriginal people and European explorers took place. According to historians, archaeologists and ethnologists, Recherche Bay has significant cultural and historical value. French expeditions landed there in 1792 and again in 1793, staying several weeks […]
A 15-year ban on the sale of ivory from illegally slaughtered elephants has boosted the popularity of fossil ivory. The ancient tusks of wooly mammoths, elephant-like creatures that lived between 20,000 and 5,000 years ago, have been recovered from sandbars near the Arctic Ocean, where they’d been carried by the Siberian tundra’s melting waters. Mammoth […]
