ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2009 | 5THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES....

E very year, more than 30 World Herit-age sites draw over one million visitorseach, and Everglades National Park,

which attracted 1,074,764 visitors in 2007,is one of the few marine sites on that list.Whether these visitors come for an hour or aweek, for a walk or a wilderness experience,they can find it in the nearly 1.5 million acres(600,000 hectares) that make up this U.S.National Park in Florida. Camping, boating,hiking, fishing — and even a visit to a ColdWar-era Nike missile base in the center ofthe park — are possible. One hundred fifty-six miles (251 kilometers) of canoe, kayakand walking trails as well as nearly 50 wil-derness campsites await travelers. Manywalking trails are wheelchair-accessible.

These activities let tourists of all ages ob-serve everything from birds to alligators. Theformer can be found nearly everywhere. TheU.S. National Park Service (www.nps.gov/ever) offers a ‘‘Bird Checklist’’ cataloguing366 species, their breeding habits andwhere to spot them. Wading birds can beseen at Eco Pond, the Anhinga Trail and

around the Gulf Coast Visitor Center; visitorsmight also see flamingoes along SnakeBight Trail at high tide.

A Canadian visitor, T.K. Philip, recom-mends the Anhinga Trail. ‘‘If you only havetime to visit one place in the Everglades, thisis definitely it,’’ he says. The Web site ofFodor’s travel guide lists the 0.8 mile (1.3 ki-lometers) Anhinga Trail as the place for al-ligators. ‘‘In winter, spying alligators congreg-ating in watering holes is almostguaranteed,’’ the site says. These animalsthrive in the canals alongside the trail.Boardwalks jutting over the waters allow forsafe alligator viewing.

Anyone who has ever visited a U.S. Na-tional Park can attest to how well visitor ac-tivities are organized. In addition to the ‘‘BirdChecklist,’’ the Park Service Web site alsoprovides ‘‘Trip Planners,’’ containing tips onwhat to see during the rainy season (May-October) and the dry season (November-April). Both have their advantages: fewerpeople visit during the rainy season, whilebird-watching and alligator viewing are best

Unesco’s World Heritage List includes878 sites of outstanding universalvalue, and tourism has become animportant concern at most of them.Unesco has established a WorldHeritage Sustainable Tourism Program,which develops policies to help sitemanagers use tourism more effectivelyas a tool for conservation. The programalso works with the tourism industry tomaximize tourism’s benefits and reduceits negative impacts. It does this bytraining local community members intourism-related activities, as well as inenvironmental and culturalpreservation; aiding them in marketingtheir products and using World Heritagesites as a lever for local economic,social and cultural development; raisingpublic awareness of World Heritagevalues; and spreading lessons learnedto other sites and protected areas.

For more information, visithttp://whc.unesco.org

The main reason Jaeger-LeCoultrewas drawn to the ‘‘Tides of Time’’project, a partnership withUnesco’s World Heritage Centreand the International Herald Tribunethat began a year ago, was itsguiding principle — protecting theworld’s marine heritage. JérômeLambert, chief executive of theSwiss luxury watchmaker, says thistype of ethic has ripened inside theorganization over its 175-yearexistence. ‘‘Our longevity has givenus a global understanding of thesense of time,’’ he says. ‘‘We havebuilt ourselves into a company thatmeasures time and that considerstime important. ‘Tides of Time’ doesthe same thing, by takingsomething that was here before wewere and preserving it for

tomorrow.’’ He adds: ‘‘You believe inthese values and fight for them. Atthe end of the day, it’s all about thevalues on which you have built thecompany, your products and yourrelationships with clients.’’

Jaeger-LeCoultre wanted to bepart of the project because of itsglobal reach in safeguarding WorldHeritage sites. In the next twoyears, the manufacture plans tohelp raise awareness on the locallevel, increasing communicationsvia its teams across the globe.‘‘Tides of Time’’ has struck a chordamong the work force at itsheadquarters. Notes Lambert: ‘‘Ourteam is proactive in finding newideas. That’s how you measure thepositive aspect of a program — ifit’s meaningful for everybody.’’

SPOTLIGHT | Undoing the damage

Everglades National Park: In a tranquil land, massive efforts to restore the flow of water

Swiss luxury watchmaker takes a stake in marine heritage

Tourism at World Heritage sites

D edicating Everglades National Park in December1947, U.S. President Harry Truman said: ‘‘Here island, tranquil in its quiet beauty, serving not as

the source of water, but as the last receiver of it.’’ Waterwas and remains central to the Everglades’ identity andsurvival. The site was inscribed on the Unesco World Her-itage List in 1979. At the time, the report by the Interna-tional Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whichevaluated Everglades National Park for World Heritagestatus, stated: ‘‘Water management manipulations arethe largest environmental threat to the ecosystem. Wa-ter quality, timing of canal releases, amounts and distri-bution affect the natural system that in turn controlswildlife and vegetation populations.’’ Today, 30 yearslater, the problem persists.

A shallow basin on Florida’s southern edge, the parkis an interface between fresh and salt water, shallowbays and deep seas. The Everglades were formed by aslow-moving river of freshwater that flowed across thisflat expanse — a watercourse that originally varied fromdepths of six inches (about 15 centimeters) to spotswhere it stretched 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide. It ranuntroubled, evolving over millennia into a finely balanced,interconnected mosaic of ecosystems — saw-grass

prairies, brackish marsh, pinelands, mangroves and thewaters of Florida Bay; more than half are marine ecosys-tems. This complex hydrological regime has been prey tomanipulation for more than a century.

Early settlers, deriding the Everglades as a mosquito-plagued swamp, in the 1800s began digging canals todrain it, without any understanding of its biological dy-namics. This effort reached its zenith in 1948 — ironic-ally, the year after the Everglades became a U.S. Nation-al Park — when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers beganconstruction of an elaborate system of roads, canals,levees and water-control structures. Though thesebrought benefits, they altered the wetlands’ natural bal-ance. In addition, freshwater began to be redirected to-ward new settlements to the north, to meet mountingpopulation pressures, thanks to land booms that wereto turn Florida into a second California.

As a result, less freshwater went to the Everglades,which reversed the local ecology. Plant and animal com-munities on land and in water depend on this aquaticstability, and they began to suffer. Wading birds such asegrets, herons and ibises have been reduced by 93 per-cent since the 1930s. In his book ‘‘Disappearing World,’’Alonzo Addison notes: ‘‘Years of draining, dike-building,

digging and construction have destroyed over half theEverglades. Today, it is arguably America’s most en-dangered park.’’

The U.S. National Park Service developed a series ofcorrective measures in 2006. Says Stephen Morris,chief of the U.S. National Park Service’s Office of Interna-tional Affairs: ‘‘These were developed in cooperationwith the IUCN, the official adviser to the World HeritageCommittee for natural sites, and approved by the WorldHeritage Committee.’’ Today, Unesco monitors annuallyhow these measures are being implemented.

Kishore Rao, deputy director of Unesco’s World Her-itage Centre, revisited Everglades National Park in April.He says: ‘‘The most striking feature is the size of theproblem and the scale of the effort that has been moun-ted. It would not be incorrect to say this is perhaps thelargest ecosystem restoration project in the world.’’Though the terrestrial as well as aquatic plant and ani-mal communities have adapted to each other over time,Rao points out that the historical water flow can neverbe recreated as a result of these measures. What ismore, he says, any benefits will not be noticeable for atleast a decade.

Restorative efforts in the Everglades started in 2000,

with the launch of a 35-year, $10 billion program —worth twice that much in today’s currency. Scientistsfrom the South Florida Natural Resources Center, a divi-sion of Everglades National Park, are involved in a seriesof projects. These include a Comprehensive EvergladesRestoration Plan, authorized by the U.S. Congress to ‘‘re-store, preserve and protect the South Florida ecosys-tem while providing for other water-related needs of theregion, including water supply and flood protection.’’ It isthe largest hydrologic restoration project ever under-taken in the United States.

The combined efforts of Unesco and the Park Servicewill be crucial for the Everglades’ survival. At stake is thelargest subtropical wilderness in continental North Amer-ica. As the first U.S. National Park preserved for its abun-dance and variety of life rather than scenic or historicvalue, the Everglades remains a sanctuary for birds, rep-tiles, wildcats and dolphins, offering refuge for 50 en-dangered species. These include the American alligatorand crocodile (it is the only place where the two coexist),the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee. Twodozen varieties of orchids flourish alongside 1,000 otherplants and 100 species of tropical and temperate-zonetrees, of which 60 are endemic to South Florida.[

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in the dry season, the site says. The Ever-glades offer many tours with park rangers,including trips to the historical missile base,no longer in use, built in 1963 after the Cu-ban Missile Crisis. A missile, assembly build-ing, silos and control centers are on view.

Bike trails are numerous, allowing visit-ors to observe nature close at hand. Bikingis also a good way to leave the crowds be-hind. There are 14 miles of nature trails onLong Pine Key Trail, making it a good choicefor those seeking a few days outdoors, ac-cording to the Web site of the travel adviserGORP. The Everglades’ flat terrain meanshiking is not strenuous, but climbers who as-

cend the 0.2 mile boardwalk to Pahokee(‘‘River of Grass’’) Overlook are rewardedwith a 360-degree view of the park. Hikingtrails are concentrated around three visitorcenters: Flamingo, Long Pine Key and SharkValley. Since water prevails at the park, thebest way to experience it is in a canoe orkayak. More than 50 sites allow for paddlingtrips, and fishing enthusiasts will haveample opportunities to land that big one.Florida Everglades Bass Fishing, a specialtyangler’s Web site, says that ‘‘South Floridaholds the state record for the number of fishcaught per person.’’ The site offers helpfulhints on bass fishing in the Everglades.[

EXPLORING | Discovering 1.5 million acres

Earth and water: Walking, canoeing and the wilderness experience

Everglades National Park,a Unesco World Heritage marinesite in Florida, is facingmany threats, but massiveefforts are under wayto restore its ecosystems

A tricolored heron inEverglades National Park.

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Jaeger-LeCoultre and UNESCO in partnershipfor conservation of World Heritage sites.A real commitment to a precious cause.

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World HeritageCentre

In partnership with

United NationsEducational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization