Get to these places before they’re gone

ARE any of these spectacular places on your wish list? It’s hard to believe, but there are some great places on Earth that will one day be gone forever.

IT’S incredibly sad to think some places on Earth will be wiped off the map.

Unfortunately, due to climate change and human carelessness, some beautiful natural sites are in danger of disappearing in the next 100 years — or sooner. We found six places all travellers should see while they still exist. TASMANIA Travel guide publisher Lonely Planet came under fire this month from Premier Will Hodgman for advising travellers to visit Tasmania before its wilderness is “compromised”. Its new book urges visitors to make the trip soon due to growing environmental threats to Tasmania’s World Heritage Area. “In Tasmania, the peace accord between pro and anti-logging forces has been torn up by the new State Government, keen to unlock old-growth forest for export,” the guide says. “Now is the time to experience these astounding wilderness areas before compromises are made.” GREAT BARRIER REEF The travel guide publisher also urges visitors in its 2016 book to make a trip to Queensland soon due to growing environmental threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Last year, Australia came under fire for its management of the Reef, which has lost half of its coral cover in 30 years. However, in July, the UN ruled against including it in the danger list, giving the government five years to stop the deterioration of the natural icon. While UNESCO’s World Heritage committee unanimously ruled that the Reef’s status remains unchanged, Australia was asked to show significant progress in pushing its plan to improve the Reef’s condition by the end of next year. TUVALU Tuvalu’s prime minister begged for help this year to stop his country disappearing off the face of the Earth. In July, Enele Spoaga, the prime minister of the world’s fourth smallest nation, travelled to Europe to call for action ahead of a UN climate change summit in Paris in December. The group of islands, home to just 10,000 people, is under direct threat by rising sea levels due to climate change as it is no more than 4m above sea level at its highest level. He called on Europe to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming down to 1.5C, which scientists say is a safer limit than the current goal of 2C, thereports. He said: “We need to save Tuvalu to save the world”. SELOUS GAME RESERVE, TANZANIA Stretching over more than 50,000 square kilometres, the Selous Game Reserve is home to large numbers of elephants, black rhinoceroses, cheetahs, giraffes, hippopotamuses and crocodiles. However widespread poaching has decimated wildlife populations, especially the elephants and rhinos whose numbers have dropped by almost 90 per cent since 1982. It has been placed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger an attempt to halt the criminal activity. EAST RENNELL, SOLOMON ISLANDS East Rennell makes up the southern third of Rennell Island, the southernmost island in the Solomon Island group. The island has the largest raised coral atoll in the world and is mostly covered with dense forest around 20 metres in height. However logging has affected the precious ecosystem as the forest is considered an essential component of the atoll and the World Heritage Committee determined it to be threatening the outstanding universal value of East Rennell. LOUISIANA Louisiana, the American state that is home to some 4.6 million people, is slowly disappearing. Since the 1930s it has lost a quarter of its coastal land size. To date, nearly 5000sq km of land has been swallowed by water. Without drastic action, the region will continue to sink, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) warns. And it’s all because the Mississippi River Delta is disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico. The CPRA hopes to save the area over the next 50 years at a cost of $68 billion. It details the problems it faces in its 2017 Coastal Master Plan Project.