Australia's most endangered destinations

[Zamperla]

Australia's most endangered destinations
By Valkerie Mangnall, The Sunday Times
December 10, 2008

AN art deco theatre in Adelaide, Sydney's Luna Park and the underground homes of Coober Pedy have made it into a book of 500 must-see places. Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear, recently published in Australia, lists sites most at risk from developers and climate change.

Author Holly Hughes said she discovered more positive developments than she expected while writing the book.

"At the outset, I feared that this project would be infinitely depressing," she writes in the foreword.

"Many of the case studies in this book are reasons for hope, not despair, and the more support we can lend them, the better."

She lists the Capri Theatre, with its Wurlitzer organ in the inner Adelaide suburb of Goodwood, among 10 classic movie palaces that have "escaped the wrecking ball".

Of Luna Park, she said: "No child who has ever walked into Luna Park, through the grotesque gaping grin of the face, could fail to be wowed."
The sites join the Daintree Rainforest, Fraser Island, the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu National Park among 21 Australian listings in the book.

The whole of Tasmania also features, with attention drawn to the endangered Tasmanian devil.

"Many unique species thrive in Tasmania, one of the world's most unusual ecosystems," Hughes said.

"However, increasing development, including logging, mining and other industries, threaten many of the island's most beautiful places."


Australia's most endangered places

Capri Theatre, SA
Coober Pedy, SA
Daintree Rainforest, Qld
Dampier Rock Art Complex, WA
Fraser Island, Qld
Gold Coast, Qld
Great Barrier Reef, Qld
Kakadu National Park, NT
Kangaroo Island, SA
Kuranda Village, Qld
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, NSW
Lord Howe Island
Luna Park, NSW
The Mabi Forest, Qld
Mission Beach, Qld
Purnululu National Park, WA
Shark Bay, WA
Tasmania
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, NT
Warrumbungle National Park, NSW
Wollemi National Park, NSW

[Paulie123]

true dat

[scorpionSA]

There is something about that Wurlitzer.....