Loving a Treasure to Death

The narrow streets of the Cambodian town of Siem Reap grow ever more crowded as hotel after hotel springs up. For a few dollars or a few hundred dollars a night, tourists can have a place to sleep before setting off for the ruins of Angkor, four miles away. The decayed Hindu and Buddhist temples such as Angkor Wat and Ta Som are some of the world’s wonders, sites -- like France’s Mont St. Michel and India’s Taj Mahal -- that live up to the hype.

Angkor is a noted example of international cooperation to stem the deterioration of a significant monument. But what it needs now is a plan to stop tourists from degrading the structures they travel to see.

The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declared the temples, which date from the 9th century, a World Heritage Site and enlisted help from foreign countries to protect and restore them a decade ago, after the Khmer Rouge had been driven from power and the genocide of the “killing fields” had ended. UNESCO has given such nations as France, Japan and India a great deal of autonomy in managing the Angkor sites, which stretch for miles.

Complaints that the control represents a new form of colonialism are overblown; foreigners supply the money and expertise and try to be sensitive to Cambodian concerns about excessive outside influence.

What does require close scrutiny is the wear and tear caused by tourists, 1 million of whom are expected this year, twice last year’s total. Angkor is not a Disneyland, but real temples vulnerable to crowds. Nature has done enough to degrade some sites -- marvelous Ta Prohm temple, for example, where trees grow from walls and now hold the stones together. India considered removing the trees to placate Hindus who felt the temple should be restored but wisely reconsidered and said it would preserve them as “a living monument.”

Angkor is also an example of the good works done by UNESCO since the organization abandoned its attacks on the United States and other Western nations and its support for developing nations that practiced press censorship in the 1970s and 1980s. The U.S. withdrew from UNESCO because of those excesses; it has since rejoined.

UNESCO should now help impoverished Cambodia balance its need for tourist dollars against the possible damage from too many visitors. Years of colonialism, wars and the Khmer Rouge atrocities have badly damaged the country; preserving Angkor Wat, symbol of the nation, and other temples can help it recover.