Florida's Everglades put on world heritage endangered list
BRASILIA — Florida's Everglades and Madagascar's tropical forest were added Friday to a list of imperiled world heritage sites by UNESCO officials who also registered lesser threats to Peru's Machu Picchu ruins and the Galapagos Islands.
The decision by the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, meeting in Brazil's capital, brought to 35 the number of unique cultural or environmental sites considered to be in danger.
Other spots included on the list were Georgia's Bagrati Cathedral and Gelati Monastery, and the Buganda Kingdom Tombs in Uganda.
The committee determined that the Everglades National Park, a mangrove swamp sanctuary for birds and reptiles in southeast United States, "because of serious and continuing degradation of its aquatic ecosystem."
Water inflows have been greatly reduced and pollution levels have increased to a point that marine life is dying off, it said.
It was the second time the Everglades has been inscribed on the list. The first time was between 1993 and 2007 because of hurricane damage, deviation of its water supply for encroaching urban centers, and pollution from agricultural flow-off.
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