Editing Angkor (section)

==== Unsustainable tourism ====
{{Original research section|date=January 2013}}
The increasing number of tourists, around two million per year,<ref name="Doherty">{{cite news |first=Ben |last=Doherty |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/27/water-raiding-threatens-angkor-wat |title=Private water raiding threatens Angkor's temples built on sand |newspaper=The Guardian |date=2010-09-27 |access-date=17 December 2016 |archive-date=28 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160928010842/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/27/water-raiding-threatens-angkor-wat |url-status=live }}</ref> exerts pressure on the archaeological sites at Angkor by walking and climbing on the (mostly) sandstone monuments at Angkor. This direct pressure created by unchecked tourism is expected to cause significant damage to the monuments in the future.<ref>{{cite news |last=Watson |first=Paul |date=2008-07-19 |title=Too Much Adoration at Cambodia's Angkor Temples |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-angkor20-2008jul20?page=1 |access-date=23 September 2009 |archive-date=31 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231031083146/https://www.latimes.com/travel |url-status=live }}</ref>

In sites such as Angkor, tourism is inevitable. Therefore, the site management team cannot exclusively manage the site. The team has to manage the flow of people. Millions of people visit Angkor each year, making the management of this flow vital to the quickly decaying structures. Western tourism to Angkor began in the 1970s.{{sfn|Wager|1995}} The sandstone monuments and Angkor are not made for this type of heightened tourism.

Moving forward, UNESCO and local authorities at the site are in the process of creating a sustainable plan for the future of the site. Since 1992, UNESCO has moved towards conserving Angkor. Thousands of new archaeological sites have been discovered by UNESCO, and the organization has moved towards protected cultural zones. Two decades later, over 1000 people are employed full-time at the site for cultural sensitivity reasons. Part of this movement to limit the impacts of tourism has been to only open certain areas of the site.

However, much of the 1992 precautionary measures and calls for future enforcement have fallen through. Both globally and locally the policy-making has been successful, but the implementation has failed for several reasons. First, there are conflicts of interest in Cambodia. While the site is culturally important to them, Cambodia is a poor country.

Tourism is a vital part to the Cambodian economy, and shutting down parts of Angkor, the largest tourist destination in the country, is not an option. A second reason stems from the government's inability to organize around the site. The Cambodian government has failed in organizing a robust team of cultural specialists and archaeologists to service the site.