内容摘要：A lion sits in a cage waiting to be transported to Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, at the Ostok Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A lion sits in a cage waiting to be transported to Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, at the Ostok Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Dragon’s blood trees are seen from the highest peak on the Yemeni island of Socotra, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)Often compared to the Galapagos Islands, Socotra floats in splendid isolation some 240 kilometers (150 miles) off the Horn of Africa. Its biological riches — including 825 plant species, of which more than a third exist nowhere else on Earth — have earned it UNESCO World Heritage status. Among them are bottle trees, whose swollen trunks jut from rock like sculptures, and frankincense, their gnarled limbs twisting skywards.

But it’s the dragon’s blood tree that has long captured imaginations, its otherworldly form seeming to belong more to the pages of Dr. Seuss than to any terrestrial forest. The island receives about 5,000 tourists annually, many drawn by the surreal sight of the dragon’s blood forests.A dragon blood’s tree sits above a canyon on the Yemeni island of Socotra on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)A dragon blood’s tree sits above a canyon on the Yemeni island of Socotra on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

Visitors are required to hire local guides and stay in campsites run by Socotran families to ensure tourist dollars are distributed locally. If the trees were to disappear, the industry that sustains many islanders could vanish with them.“With the income we receive from tourism, we live better than those on the mainland,” said Mubarak Kopi, Socotra’s head of tourism.

But the tree is more than a botanical curiosity: It’s a pillar of Socotra’s ecosystem. The umbrella-like canopies capture fog and rain, which they channel into the soil below, allowing neighboring plants to thrive in the arid climate.

“When you lose the trees, you lose everything — the soil, the water, the entire ecosystem,” said Kay Van Damme, a Belgian conservation biologist who has worked on Socotra since 1999.According to the most recent data from the International Trade Administration, 36% of international visitors who arrived to the U.S. by air listed visits to national parks and national monuments as their top leisure activity while in the U.S.

Seventeen percent of Yellowstone’s visitors came from other countries in 2016, according to a park visitor use study with the most recent comprehensive data available.Visitors from Europe and Asia accounted for the majority of travelers from outside the U.S., with 34% from China, 11% from Italy and 10% from Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed those numbers significantly, said Brian Riley whose Wyoming-based business, Old Hand Holdings, markets the Yellowstone region in China and runs tours.“Every Chinese is taught how great Yellowstone is in their elementary school,” Riley said Friday.