Our children and grandchildren may not have a chance to visit many of the most famous places around the world. War, weather, age, traffic and pollution damage these famous places. Looking after these places often costs more than one country can afford.

In the early 1970s, world governments decided that if they joined together, they would be able to preserve our history. If every country paid some money, they said, it would be possible to look after important historic places. Also, if they discovered that a monument needed urgent help, they would have money for repairs. For these reasons, countries around the world united to form the World Heritage Organization in 1972. Today, the organization helps to maintain and restore the most important places from our history.

However, one of the biggest problems for historic places is vandalism. People sometimes enter the sites and destroy or damage the buildings. At some sites, such as Stonehenge in England, governments have built high fences to protect the site from vandals.

There are many different ideas about how to solve the problem of vandalism. Some experts say that if guards patrolled the sites, vandals would not be able to get in. Some experts say that if they fixed more television cameras, they would not need so many guards. Other experts say that the best solution is education. If people learned to respect history, they would not destroy or damage it. They would also want to spend money looking after old places. For this reason, the World Heritage Organization helps to spread information about the value of historic sites.

WHO is an organization to spread information about the value of historic sites.