The World Monuments Fund is a nonprofit organization based out of New York that seeks to preserve historic architectural and cultural heritage sites around the world. Every other year, the organization releases a list of “25 historic places facing major challenges including climate change, tourism, conflict, and natural disaster,” according to the WMF’s website. For the first time, a non-earthly entity has been added to the list — the moon.
The 2025 list is full of beloved landmarks like the Buddhist Grottoes of Maijishan and Yungang, China, and the historic lighthouses of Maine in the United States. And now, the moon that hangs above us all in the night sky.
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The logic here is that, as we enter a brand-new Space Age, the moon and its over 90 historic sites—including such iconic spots as the Apollo 11 landing site where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first steps on the lunar surface—are going to need some kind of protection as we further explore and perhaps even colonize the moon.
Think of it as a form of preemptive protection against the rich assholes who are going to try to ruin the moon before the rest of us can get there.
According to the organization’s press release, since it was launched in 1996, the WMF watchlist has contributed over $120 million to the preservation of around 350 sites around the world. Its lists have generated independent interest in maintaining these historic sites and generated upwards of $300 million dedicated to preserving them.
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