Burren gets a timely reminder

GUIDEBOOK: THE BURREN in Co Clare features in a new guidebook on the most endangered tourist destinations across the world.

GUIDEBOOK:THE BURREN in Co Clare features in a new guidebook on the most endangered tourist destinations across the world.

Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear, which will be published on November 6th, describes the Burren as "Ireland's stony wilderness" which "is a fragile environment that is threatened by both too much and too little human attention".

The list includes marine life around the Falkland Islands and the Dead Sea - which Frommer's says may remain a tourist option for only three more decades before it is completely dry, thanks to the diverting of the rivers that feed it.

New York's Little Italy also features in the line-up. "Though a vestige of the area, celebrated in films from The Godfather to Mean Streets, has been preserved, it is being gradually squeezed by the burgeoning Chinatown and Soho districts," it says.

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More than 20 of Britain's best-loved landmarks merit a place in the Frommer's collection, including the Tower of London and Greenwich Maritime Museum, which are at risk from rising ocean levels that could lead to the Thames flooding its banks.

The guidebook's message is not all gloom. It says some destinations are already on the road to being saved. "Even in the cases where a site has been lost, or irrevocably damaged, it often has become a rallying point for activists, inspiring them to fight on so that the same mistakes aren't made again."

Other listings include Little Green Street in London, Hadrian's Wall and the Taj Mahal.