【推荐1】The Global Heritage Fund, a nonprofit organization, aims to protect places of cultural importance in developing countries for the reasons that these countries often have few resources to protect such places and that other major cultural organizations often pay more attention to protecting places in developed countries. For example, UNESCO has 45 World Heritage places in Italy, 42 in Spain, but Peru, famous for its ancient Incan buildings, has only 9 World Heritage places. Guatemala has only 3.

The fund recently released a list of cultural treasures in the developing world that are in danger of disappearing. These places are important because they are records of our human civilization. Globalization has created an international culture that is about sameness. But the endangered places are trying to protect the rich differences of human culture throughout history.

One of the fund’s current projects is in Guatemala’s (危地马拉) Mirador Basin, which contains several important examples of ancient Mayan settlements. The buildings are surrounded by forests.

Centuries of tree growth has covered the pyramids and religious buildings, which provides some of the finest examples of the early part of the Mayan civilization (玛雅文明). But this area is in danger from robbers and people cutting trees illegally. Also, over the past ten years, over 70% of the natural environment in the area has been destroyed by fires.

The fund has 3 goals for its Mirador project. One is helping the government obtain UNESCO recognition. Another is establishing permanent protection for the area. And the third is working to make the area a sustainable protected area within 10 years.

To meet these goals, money from the fund will go toward restoring the buildings of El Mirador and mapping and exploring newly discovered buildings. The fund is also paying to train local guides on how to stop theft and illegal tree-cutting. Educational programs are helping to give people in the area the skills they need to have jobs that do not endanger this protected area.

The Global Heritage Fund says we have a duty to the people of the past, present and future to make sure we do not lose these examples of human history. Every country, organization and individual can play a role in helping to protect this rich history.

【推荐3】The United States is home to 562 recognized American Indian Nations each with its own language.

Yet the number of native. Americans with the ability to speak their tribe's language has decreased over the past century.

Now, Indian Nations are trying different ways to expand the number of native speakers, and increase interest in their communities to learn tribal languages.

Since the late 1800s. many American Indian children have attended boarding schools. At that time, Indian children were required to attend schools by law, and the government forced Indian families to send their children to such schools.

The children were separated from their families. and given English name The teachers often taught native American students in English, instead of the language of their parents. They were told they needed to learn English in order to get a job, earn money and buy a house or nice things.

However, fearing a loss of history and culture, the Indian Nations are experimenting with new ways to increase the language ability of tribal members.

At least one organization is turning to modern technology---The Sealaska Heritage Institute, a nonprofit group, has developed two apps for speakers of the Tlingit language.

The “Learning Tlingit” app serves as a reference for important language topics such as conversation phrases, number, and letters.

The Tlingit tribe has about 10, 000 members. They live mainly in southeastern Alaska. But as of 2013, the tribe had only 125 native speakers left. in addition, very few young people are able to speak Tlingit.

Currently there are two apps, called “Learning Tlingit” and “Tlingit Language Games”. The “Learning Tlingit” app serves as a language guide. It provides Tlingit words and expressions, the tribal alphabet, as well as a basic list of the words included. With the “Tlingit Language Games” app, users are given a choice of different places of environments, like a house, forest or ocean.