When Good Ideas Go Bad

Have you ever seen an idea, proposal, law, or entire company that has the unfortunate distinction of being a good idea gone bad? You know what I'm talking about here: A great idea to start that wasn't quite carried out all of the way, or thought through entirely... I stumble across these once in awhile and I happened upon one this week that I thought I'd share. This week's good idea gone bad revolves around UNESCO's World Heritage list.

For those of you not familiar UNESCO's World Heritage List, it is a UN entity that (according to their Web site):

Seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.

Sounds good to me. Basically, sites that we all love to visit such as the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, the Pyramids, and 848 other sites around the world (to see the full list, click here) are named to the list and protected. Cool. No brainer. Here's the problem though:

The UN has created this list (good), but doesn't provide any funding (real bad). Think about this one for a second: These sites are instantly recognized as the "it" places to see in countries around the world when they are named to the list. Every year, new sites are listed, announced, and generate a tremendous amount of buzz. Hmm.... in turn, tens of thousands of new people flock to these areas that didn't know about them beforehand. No funding + thousands of people = damage to historical sites. Or as travelport puts it:

UNESCO Sites:
Even more ironic is the mounting concern that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is actually speeding the demise of the planet’s most venerable places by designating them World Heritage Destinations. World Heritage status carries with it no funding, but brings an onslaught of tourists that many of the 830 sites “of outstanding value to humanity” are unable to sustain, especially the ones in developing countries.

UNESCO's mission statement about "protecting" these areas lists eight bullet points on how they plan to accomplish such "protection". Six of the eight points listed start with the word "Encourage". So here's my news flash: As much as I'd like to think that states, countries, and governments will automatically fund sites that UNESCO "encourages" them to protect, we all know better. And until UNESCO starts funding these newly (and existing) named sites, I'd just assume not name them at all.