World Monuments Fund Puts Moon on List of At-Risk Sites

For years, the World Monuments Fund has sought to draw attention and resources to endangered cultural heritage sites including Machu Picchu in Peru, temples in Cambodia and the old city of Taiz in Yemen.

But this year’s list of at-risk sites goes much further afield: to the moon.

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

Concerned that the new space race could exacerbate space debris and expand tourism in orbit and beyond, the group named the moon as one of the 25 endangered sites on its 2025 World Monuments Watch. The other sites on the list, endangered by challenges including climate change, tourism, conflict and natural disasters, include Gaza, a damaged historical building in Kyiv, and eroding coastlines in Kenya and the United States.

With a growing number of wealthy people going to space and more governments pursuing human spaceflight, the group warns that more than 90 important sites on the moon could be harmed. In particular, some researchers are worried about Tranquillity Base, the Apollo 11 landing site where the astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon’s surface.

Protections for cultural heritage are typically decided by individual countries, which makes the task of taking care of important international sites like the moon more difficult.

Since 2020, the United States and 51 other countries have signed the Artemis Accords, a nonbinding agreement that outlined the norms expected in outer space. The rules included a call to preserve space heritage including “robotic landing sites, artifacts, spacecraft and other evidence of activity on celestial bodies.” A separate binding United Nations agreement provided for the protection of lunar sites, but there has been little progress in getting key countries to sign it.