Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A beautiful and memorable look at some of the most gorgeous endangered places on the planet.
Machu Picchu is a mesmerizing, ancient Incan city tucked away in the mountains of Peru, but it is rapidly being worn down by the thousands of feet treading across its stones. Glacier National Park is a destination long known for the stunning beauty of its ice floes, but in our lifetimes it will have no glaciers due to global warming. In the biobays of Puerto Rico swimmers can float in a sea shimmering with bioluminescent life, but sediment being churned up by development is killing the dinoflagellates that produce the eerie and beautiful glow. And in the Congo Basin of Africa, where great apes roam freely in lush, verdant rainforests, logging is quickly destroying the vast life-giving canopies. These places-along with many others across the globe-are changing as we speak due to global warming, environmental degradation, overuse, and natural causes.
From the Boreal Forests in Finland to the Yangtze River Valley in China, 37 Places to See Before They Disappear is a treasure trove of geographic wonder, and a guide to these threatened destinations and what is being done to save them.
Table of Contents
Foreword By Pico Iyer Introduction
NORTH AMERICA
United States
Appalachia
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska
The Cascades and Mount Rainier, Washington
Casco Bay, Maine
The Everglades, Florida
Glacier National Park, Montana
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Inner and Outer Banks, North Carolina
Napa Valley, California
Oahu, Hawaii
The Rio Grande
Yellowstone National Park
Canada
Banks Island, Northwest Territories
Hudson Bay, Manitoba and Nunavut
Inside Passage, British Columbia
The Caribbean
Bioluminescent Bays, Puerto Rico
Roatán, Honduras
Turks and Caicos Islands
SOUTH AMERICA
Amazon Basin
Aysén, Patagonia, Chile
Chacaltaya, Bolivia
Galápagos, Ecuador
Machu Picchu, Peru
EUROPE & THE MIDDLE EAST
The Alps
Boreal Forest, Lapland, Finland
Canary Islands, Spain
Danube River and Delta
Dead Sea, Israel and Jordan
Venice, Italy
AFRICA
Congo Basin, Central Africa
Maasailand, Kenya
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Timbuktu, Mali
ASIA, PACIFIC ISLANDS, AND AUSTRALIA
Everest National Park, Nepal
Tuvalu and Maldives
Yangtze River Valley, China
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Appendix A: Responsible Travel Resources
Appendix B: Regional Advocacy Organizations