For years, the World Monuments Fund has sought to attract consideration and assets to endangered cultural heritage websites together with Machu Picchu in Peru, temples in Cambodia and the outdated metropolis of Taiz in Yemen.
However this yr’s checklist of at-risk websites goes a lot additional afield: to the moon.
“The moon appears to date outdoors of our scope,” stated Bénédicte de Montlaur, the group’s president and chief government. “However with people venturing an increasing number of into area, we predict it’s the proper time to get ourselves organized.”
Involved that the new space race might exacerbate area particles and increase tourism in orbit and past, the group named the moon as one of many 25 endangered websites on its 2025 World Monuments Watch. The opposite websites on the checklist, endangered by challenges together with local weather change, tourism, battle and pure disasters, embody Gaza, a broken historic constructing in Kyiv, and eroding coastlines in Kenya and america.
With a rising variety of rich individuals going to area and extra governments pursuing human spaceflight, the group warns that greater than 90 vital websites on the moon could possibly be harmed. Specifically, some researchers are nervous about Tranquillity Base, the Apollo 11 touchdown website the place the astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon’s floor.
Protections for cultural heritage are usually determined by particular person nations, which makes the duty of caring for vital worldwide websites just like the moon tougher.
Since 2020, america and 51 different nations have signed the Artemis Accords, a nonbinding settlement that outlined the norms anticipated in outer area. The principles included a name to protect area heritage together with “robotic touchdown websites, artifacts, spacecraft and different proof of exercise on celestial our bodies.” A separate binding United Nations settlement offered for the safety of lunar websites, however there was little progress in getting key nations to signal it.
“The moon doesn’t belong to anyone,” de Montlaur stated. “It’s a image of hope and the longer term.”
For nearly 30 years, the World Monuments Fund has obtained nominations for its watch list of endangered sites from heritage consultants world wide. The checklist is an academic and promotional software serving the nonprofit’s other efforts to protect cultural heritage.
A division of the International Council on Monuments and Sites dedicated to aerospace heritage nominated the moon for the nonprofit watch checklist. Gai Jorayev, president of that division, stated that members needed to see sustainable administration due to the “sheer variety of human artifacts on its floor.”
Past the lunar orbiters and rangers scattered throughout the moon’s floor that categorical scientific achievements, there are additionally artifacts of human tradition. Apollo 11 astronauts left a golden olive department to represent peace, whereas a SpaceX rocket lifted a lander that carried 125 miniature sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons to the moon’s floor final yr.
And whereas many consultants agree that lunar heritage wants higher protections, some specialists questioned the World Monuments Fund’s claims that area heritage confronted rapid dangers.
“It’s a little drastic to say your complete moon must be protected against tourism and science,” stated Michelle Hanlon, an area lawyer who helped set up a nonprofit known as For All Moonkind to advocate for a global framework defending lunar heritage.
She stated that many upcoming scientific expeditions are headed to websites removed from earlier landings, however that vacationer spacecraft may disturb historic sites with out higher rules in place. Hanlon added that one other hazard might come from defunct satellites crashing into the lunar floor. “The moon doesn’t have an environment that may burn them up,” she stated.
On the World Monuments Fund, staffers count on a future the place area tourism is extra widespread. “It isn’t so distant that there’s going to be leisure visits to the moon,” stated Jonathan Bell, vice chairman of applications. “We see placing the moon on the watch checklist as an exquisite alternative to advocate for the necessity and worth of preservation.”
