The Moon Makes the List of the World’s Most Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in 2025

Every two years, the nonprofit World Monuments Fund releases a list of cultural heritage sites it deems most at risk of disappearing because of threats like war or climate change. The line-up of landmarks usually includes historic temples, cemeteries and neighborhoods. But this year, a surprising new locale made the list: the moon.

“The moon seems so far outside of our scope,” Bénédicte de Montlaur, the organization’s president and chief executive officer, tells the New York Times’ Zachary Small. “But with humans venturing more and more into space, we think it is the right time to get ourselves organized.”

Case in point: On Wednesday, the same day the group released its 2025 World Monuments Watch report, a SpaceX rocket blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to launch two private robotic landers to the moon.

More broadly, NASA plans to put humans back on the moon during this decade through its Artemis missions. The space agency also wants to build a permanent base on Earth’s natural satellite to help prepare for possible human missions to Mars. And that’s just the United States—other countries are also pursuing lunar missions.

The moon is further imperiled by the growing mass of “space junk” floating in its vicinity, as well as the emerging space tourism market. Advocates of protecting human heritage on the moon have raised concerns about vacationers in the future damaging lunar historic sites, or robotic spacecraft inadvertently destroying them when landing.

More specifically, the World Monument Fund says such disturbances could threaten more than 90 sites on the moon’s surface that reflect some of humankind’s “most extraordinary feats of courage and ingenuity.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by World Monuments Fund (@worldmonumentsfund)

One such location is Tranquility Base, the name given to the place where astronauts first walked on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. There, they left behind 106 artifacts, from Neil Armstrong’s boot print to the descent stage of the landing module itself.

Places like Tranquility Base represent “remarkable science and engineering milestones rooted in millennia of astronomical study and remain a source of growing scientific knowledge,” according to the World Monuments Fund.

“These landing sites also mark moments that stirred the collective imagination and inspired a sense of global wonder and shared accomplishment,” the group adds.

Protecting the moon will be tricky, since it doesn’t belong to any one nation or government. But experts are optimistic that international cooperation is possible.

“You have some precedents and the main, most interesting one is Antarctica, where monuments were nominated like Shackleton’s Hut,” de Montlaur tells the London Times’ Jack Blackburn. “You have a treaty in Antarctica recognizing heritage and protecting it.”

Fifty-two countries, including the United States, have already signed the Artemis Accords—a non-legally binding set of statements that describe best practices for exploring the moon, Mars, comets and asteroids. Among their many goals, the accords are meant to protect “shared outer space heritage,” but they don’t include specific guidelines for how countries nations do that.

The moon is just one of the 25 sites on this year’s list of at-risk areas, selected from more than 200 nominations. Others include places threatened by climate change, such as heritage sites on the Swahili Coast of East Africa.

“This region faces pressing threats like storm surges and rising sea levels,” de Montlaur tells the Art Newspaper’s Allison C. Meier

Maine’s 66 historic lighthouses—some of which are more than 200 years old—are also grappling with sea-level rise and increasingly intense winter storms.

“They are now facing a threat level not anticipated or seen before,” says Ford Reiche, whose private Presumpscot Foundation owns two Maine lighthouses, to the Bangor Daily News’ Troy R. Bennett. “Some will likely be lost.”

Human conflicts are devastating other landmarks on the list, including the “Teacher’s House” in Kyiv, Ukraine, where the nation’s parliament began meeting after the Ukrainian People’s Republic declared independence in 1918. Its dome was damaged and its windows and doors knocked out by a nearby Russian missile strike in October 2022. The World Monument Fund says it supports efforts to rehabilitate the building “as a national symbol of resilience and enduring identity in times of conflict.”

Gaza also made the list. Much of the area has been destroyed by Israel’s military since October 7, 2023, in response to a surprise invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants. The Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, for example, has sustained at least two strikes. It’s believed to be the third-oldest church in the world, and it’s an important place of worship for the few Christians in Gaza, most of whom are Greek Orthodox. On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal.

“As we all know, the Middle East is a cradle of civilization,” de Montlaur tells NPR’s Neda Ulaby. “And in Gaza, you have examples of those various communities and their heritage that have lived there.”

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.