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Before the pandemic it was impossible to escape the crowds in Angkor.

Its grandiose temples, a Unesco World Heritage Site for 28 years, were devoured from sunrise to sunset by the cameras of the hungry tourists who landed in Siem Riep.

And despite the invasion, the impact of seeing one of the greatest religious monuments in the world was unforgettable.

Today, the mythical city of northwest Cambodia, hidden in the middle of the jungle, faces a threat that could exponentially multiply the challenge of mass tourism.

It is the construction of a gigantic amusement park in the Disneyland style and only

500 meters from its doors

.

Angkor Lake of Wonder (Angkor, lake of wonders) is the name of the controversial resort.

It is a project of the Chinese company NagaCorp, owner of several casinos, which has the blessing of the Cambodian government.

According to the newspaper

Le Monde

, the resort was presented at the end of January before the Unesco International Committee for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (CIC-Angkor), generating perplexity among experts.

Aerial image of the temples SHUTTERSTOCK

For these, "the

disproportionate size

of the project does not seem compatible with the spirit of preservation and management of an iconic place like Angkor. It would seriously affect the image of 'outstanding universal value' that was recognized by the World Heritage Committee in December 1992 ".

This 'exceptional universal value' has been precisely appealed by the body here in Spain these days to reject the change of the doors of the main portal of the

Cathedral of Burgos

, a project of 1.2 million euros commissioned to the artist Antonio López.

The Angkor Lake of Wonder affront is valued at

$ 350 million

.

It will include hotels, a high-tech theme park, MICE facilities (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) and even cultural attractions.

According to

The Phnom Penh Post

, NagaCorp is also planning a road linking the resort with the Angkor temples to "promote the concept of NagaWorld and Angkor Wat as

Cambodia's

twin

tourism

icons

."

the ecological factor

Although the highlight of the complex is its aquatic facilities: a 2.5-kilometer-long "enchanted river" with boats and gondolas, a large 500-meter-long canal and attractions such as

wave pools, slides and even a market floating

.

All well equipped with shops, restaurants and hotels with up to 900 rooms overlooking the water.

Such an aquatic display is inevitably part of the controversy.

In Angkor, which grew to be three times the size of what we know and to be home to a million inhabitants, the ancient Khmers built a prodigious

irrigation system

that reached the temples themselves.

Concern about the lack of water had pushed Unesco in recent years to rehabilitate these canals.

According to figures from the international body, the temples receive

four million tourists a year

(2.5 of them foreigners).

In addition to showing its rejection of the project, UNESCO could take more drastic measures, such as removing Angkor from the World Heritage catalog.

He did it in 2009 with the beautiful cultural landscape of the Elbe Valley, after the city of Dresden built a bridge rejected by Unesco.

Another precedent is that of the

Sanctuary of the Arab Oryx

in Oman, which was excluded in 2007, although this time at the request of the sultanate itself, which wanted to exploit its oil reserves.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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