1 . The world is a vast and beautiful place, full of natural wonders and man-made marvels. From the ancient ruins of Rome to the Great Wall of China, there are countless places that make us proud of our ancestors.     1     They are also essential for future generations.

Heritage is our legacy. It is what we pass down to our children and grandchildren. Heritage helps us to understand the past. It can teach us about our ancestors and their culture. Heritage can inspire us.     2     Heritage can unite us. It can bring people together from different backgrounds and cultures.

    3     The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system, and it is at risk from natural forces, including climate change and pollution. The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest, regulating the Earth’s climate. It is at risk from human activities, like deforestation, mining, and agriculture.

We can all do our part to help preserve these sites. Learn more about the sites that are on the List of World Heritage in Danger.     4     Support organizations that are working to protect these sites. You can donate money, volunteer your time, or spread the word about their work.

Together, we can make a difference.     5    

On the north bank of Fuxian Lake in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province sits a straw-hat-shaped mountain     1     (call) Maotian Mountain,     2     a 512-hectare site is praised as a “world-class treasure trove of fossils” by the international scientific community. On July 1,1984, young paleontologists in China discovered a fossil of the arthropod (节肢动物化石) with a long tail in Maotian Mountain. “    3     we had studied in China were just shell of fossils. The arthropods, lifelike fossils with legs, which belonged to fossils of soft-bodied animals, are     4     game changer in the research of China’s paleontology (古生物学)”, Hou Xianguang, a paleontologist said.

Scientists have obtained a large number of research results on Chengjiang Fossil Site. The reason why Chengjiang fauna (动物群) is     5     great significance is that it is closely related to the emergence of the animal tree of life.

Up to now, more than 20 phyla and more than 280 species     6     (record)in the Chengjiang Fossil Site, of which, 80% are new species. On July 1, 2012, the Chengjiang Fossil Site     7     (be) inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO,     8     (become) China’ s first World Heritage Site for paleontological fossils.

The UNESCO evaluation says the Chengjiang Fossil Site is one of the     9     (early) records of a complex marine ecosystem of the early Cambrian communities. The property displays excellent quality of fossil     10     (preserve). It presents an exceptional record of the rapid diversification of life on Earth during the early Cambrian period.

3 . The Great Barrier Reef in Queensland has suffered several mass bleaching events due to the impacts of climate change. The Australian government turned down a proposal for a new open-cut coal mine near the Great Barrier Reef, considering environmental laws and the risk of “irreversible damage”. It was the first time the government had used its powers under environmental laws to reject a mine.

In turning down the project, Tanya Plibersek, the minister for the environment and water, cited significant potential environmental dangers to the reef, which is already heavily threatened by climate change.” The risk of pollution is real and the damage to the reef, once done, will never be repaired. “The project would have had unacceptable impacts on freshwater in the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows,” Plibersek said in a video posted on social media. She said that during the public consultation period, her department had received 9,000 public comments about the mine in just 10 business days.

The government has been under pressure from UNESCO to better protect the reef and in 2022, it pledged one billion Australian dollars for efforts to protect the fragile ecosystem, including climate adaptation measures and water quality programs. Last year, the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for more than 2,300 kilometers, experienced its sixth mass bleaching event, due to warming waters caused by climate change.

The government, elected in 2022, came to power promising stronger action on the climate in a country still heavily depending on fossil fuels. But its climate policies are rated “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, which found Australia is not on course to meet targets to limit warming to 1. 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The government has rejected calls from the country’s Green Party to turn down all new fossil fuel projects.

4 . The black cloud rising every day at sunset in the Chihuahuan Desert went largely ignored for thousands of years. Native Americans noticed it, but did not track its source. Cowboys thought the cloud was smoke pouring from the earth, and avoided it.

In June of 1901, however, a teenage cowboy named Jim White happened to see the large, black cloud. He was curious and went to investigate. Instead of finding a volcano, as he had imagined, he discovered something equally amazing. It was a big mass of bats. Two days later, he returned with a lantern to explore further. It took him so long that his lantern went out. He managed to refill it with just enough oil to find his way back to the entrance.

The next time Jim White went to the cave, he brought a friend and supplies. They explored for three days and returned with descriptions that were so fantastic that few people believed them. The cowboys on nearby farms and the people in the tiny town of Carlsbad treated Jim’s stories as tall tales and nothing more.

After years of exploring the caves and finding no one to believe his stories, Jim White decided to create his own tourist attraction. He established trails (路线) along the paths he had found. One day in 1915, two men asked Jim for a tour. After seeing the caves, the men returned with a professional photographer named Ray V. Davis. Local doubts were finally put to rest by the photographs of the hidden beauty that Jim had discovered. All 13 locals of Carlsbad finally took a tour of the caves, which came to be known as Carlsbad Caverns.

In 1923, the government sent an official named Robert Holly to tour the caves. Later that year, the caves were stated a national monument (古迹), and in 1930 they became a national park. Jim White lived to see the Carlsbad Caverns become world-famous. Today, tourists can hike to and tour some of the 100 known caves in this huge natural wonder, thanks to the cowboy from New Mexico.

5 . The following properties which the World Heritage Committee has decided to include on the List of World Heritage are in danger according to Article 11 (4) of the Convention (公约).

Virunga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Virunga National Park, covering an area of 790,000 ha., includes an outstanding diversity of habitats, ranging from swamps and steppes (沼泽和平原) to the snowfields. Mountain gorillas are also found in the park.

Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan)

The cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley stand for the artistic and religious developments which from the 1st to the 13th centuries characterized ancient Bakhtria. The area contains a number of Buddhist monastic ensembles (佛教寺院), as well as strong buildings from the Islamic period.

Okapi Wildlife Reserve (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

The Okapi Wildlife Reserve occupies about one-fifth of the Ituri forest in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The reserve contains threatened species of primates and birds surviving in the wild. It also has some amazing scenery, including waterfalls on the Ituri and Epulu rivers. The reserve is inhabited by traditional nomadic pygmy Mbuti and Efe hunters.

Historic Center of Vienna (Austria)

Vienna developed from early Celtic and Roman settlements into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It played an important role as a leading European music center, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century.

In 2016, Shennongjia made it onto the UNESCO World Heritage List. It     1     (contain) a naturally-balanced environment that allows the many and various species to live and prosper. It is also one of the rare locations in the world     2     scientists can observe in real time the ecological and biological processes that occur as the plants and animals develop and evolve. The most impressive aspect of Shennongjia is the local people,     3     take things from nature without causing damage.

8 . One of Prague’s most famous sights, the Orloj, the third oldest clock in the world, has been stopped. It is set to undergo months of restoration (修复)that will see the return of several, but not all, of its original parts.

Perhaps no other clock better proves the genius of the early pioneers of time keeping than the Orloj. Marking the minutes and hours is only one of the many measurements it provides.

The 607-year-old astronomical clock tracks Old Bohemian time, when the new day begins with sunset; Babylon time, which tracks the day from sunrise to sunset; Central European time, which is marked with a hand in the shape of the sun; and Star time, measured by the way the stars appear to move because of the earth’s movement.

A calendar dial (刻度盘)notes the days of the week, month and year, and a zodiacal ring (黄道环)shows the path of the sun and the moon through the sky. But, it is the astrolabe (星盘)that is the heart of the clock’s mechanical (机械的) operation. It tracks the position of the sun, the moon and stars, and has been a necessary tool for astronomers.

Over the centuries, the clock has been damaged and repaired, but, always returned to fully working order. Its longevity has inspired a number of sayings. One is that when the clock stops running, the Czech land will be thrown into war and privation (贫困). Another holds that who ever tries to affect the machine will die or go crazy.

Skala, who has been a clock master for 25 years, said he was honored when asked to take care of the Orloj eight years ago. Asked whether he believed the sayings, Skala smiled. “I didn’t believe the stories,” he said, “or else I would never be able to work on the clock.”

9 . Humans are responsible for 25% to 40% more of the total share of methane emissions(甲烷排放)than previously estimated, according to a new study in Nature.

Methane is one of the most powerful and effective greenhouse gases: about 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. It's responsible for about a quarter of global warming. It's produced naturally by animals, volcanoes, and wetlands, but it's also a byproduct of oil and gas production. It's this last form of methane that the study focused on.

Researchers used ice core measurements from Greenland from 1750 to 2013, plus previous data from Antarctica. They melted the ice to let the small quantities of ancient air trapped inside come out. These act a bit like time capsules,allowing us to learn about the methane in the atmosphere at the time. They used carbon-14, which comes from living things, as a substitute(替代物)to determine whether the methane they found came from biological sources. Until 1870, around the time when we started using fossil(化石)fuels, almost all methane came from these sources. After that, there was a rise in methane that didn't have any carbon-14, from ancient fossil sources in which carbon-14 had disappeared. That allowed the researchers to compare natural methane with methane caused by human activity.

If more methane is created by humans, there's an even bigger opportunity to control how much we release. Methane stays in the atmosphere for only a decade(compared with 200 years for carbon dioxide). So efforts to cut methane, which mostly comes from the production and transportation of gas and oil, could bring great benefit right away.

10 . Four Most Amazing Cultural World Heritage Sites

Acropolis of Athens

As the name suggests, one of the most amazing cultural world heritage sites Acropolis of Athens has the location of Athens, Greece. It is a heritage site since 1987. The site is an ancient castle that is on a high rocky outcrop over the city of Athens containing the remains of the Parthenon and other ancient important structures. It is one of the most famous monument (遗迹)in Europe.

Rapa Nui National Park

One of the most amazing cultural world heritage sites, it is in the Easter Island. You know it as the heritage site since 1995. These are a Monolithic (庞大而单一的)human figures that are carvings by the Rapa Nui people from rock between the years 1250 and 1500. These have overly large heads three-eighths the size of the whole statue and Paro which is the tallest, almost 10 meters high with 75 tonnes of weight.

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza is a place in Mexico. It is a heritage site since 1988. One of the most amazing cultural world heritage sites, Chichen Itza was a large pre-Columbian city. It is a gift by the Maya people. Being a major focal point in the northern Maya lowlands for centuries, it was one of the largest Maya cities. Today, Chichen Itza is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico. It receives around 1.2 million visitors each year.

Taj Mahal

You will find this one of the most amazing cultural world heritage sites in Agra, India that has bagged a place in the heritage site since 1983. It is white marble mausoleum (陵墓)which was built between 1632 and 1653 under the order of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.