許多城市多以光彩奪目的夜間燈火吸引觀光客，紐西蘭南島小鎮泰卡波（Tekapo）則不一樣，入夜後全鎮一片漆黑，鎮民使用上罩式低耗能鈉燈，屋內燈具一律朝下，以保護夜空。
泰卡波全鎮僅八百卅人，鎮民有志一同，以各種方法減少光害，使浩瀚夜空得以呈現眾星閃爍的原始面貌，並爭取聯合國教科文組織（UNESCO）同意給以全球首例「星光保護」（starlight reserve）認證。
事實上，泰卡波已經吸引「星空觀光客」絡繹前往。一個廿五人的觀光團最近在山巔仰首欣賞銀河景致時，顧不得膝蓋、兩手、臉龐因刺骨寒風而麻木。四十六歲的阿姆斯特丹管理顧問范福特表示：「簡直無法用言詞形容。你可以看到許多前所不知的景觀。已有兩個世代的人渾然不知有此景象，因為半個世界光害嚴重。」 教科文組織二○○五年發想「星光保護」認證的概念。位於南島麥肯錫盆地的泰卡波先行，積極尋覓當地人口中「空中的公園」（park in the sky）。由於泰卡波沒有霾害，而且嚴格實施燈火管制，部分人士提議以它為試辦點。上個月，教科文組織一個工作小組同意研究麥肯錫觀光發展委員會主席墨瑞所說的「空中的遺產公園」。墨瑞表示：「我們為教科文組織專家講解如何觀察夜空與周圍環境，使他們瞭解如何保護這項世界遺產。」 教科文組織認證的世界歷史、文化、生態、自然遺產累計已達八百七十八處，獨缺穹蒼。延伸及此將面臨多項考驗，包括教科文組織的規章並未提到天空，及應如何界定畫入保護的天空範圍。 光害是個相當普遍的問題。加州死亡谷也是美國管制燈火以保護星空景象的城市之一。此外，教科文組織前科學部長表示，其他表示有意跟進的城市包括加納利群島的拉帕馬島、夏威夷、復活節島、加拉巴哥島、葡萄牙、加拿大、羅馬尼亞和智利北部。
TEKAPO, New Zealand (AP) -- This little town is in the dark and proud of it.
Where other places greet the night by lighting up their streets and tourist attractions, this one goes the other way - low-energy sodium lamps are shielded from above, and household lights must face down, not up.
The purpose: to bring out the stars.
The town of 830 people on New Zealand's South Island is on a mission to protect the sight of the night sky, even as it disappears behind light and haze in many parts of the world.
The ultimate prize would be UNESCO's approval for the first "starlight reserve," and already the "astro tourists" are coming.
A group of 25 are huddled at midnight on a bare New Zealand hilltop, their faces numbed by an icy wind as they gaze up at the Milky Way.
"It's awesome, I mean it's like beyond words," says Simon Venvoort, 46, a management consultant from Amsterdam. "You see so much you aren't aware of."
"You know that two generations now are growing up not being aware that all this is out there because ... half of the world is light-polluted."
It's estimated that about one fifth of the world's population and more than two-thirds in the U.S. cannot see the Milky Way from their homes.
The "starlight reserve" idea germinated in UNESCO in 2005. Tekapo, in the McKenzie Basin of South Island, was already on its own track, seeking what locals were calling their "park in the sky." So Tekapo was suggested as a pilot site because of its haze-free sky and lighting controls already in place.
A UNESCO working party agreed last month to study what Graeme Murray, chairman of the Mackenzie Tourism and Development Board, calls "a heritage park in the sky."
"We helped make UNESCO world heritage look upward as well as around them in protecting the world's heritage," he says.
The U.N. body has extended world heritage status to 878 historic, cultural, ecological and natural sites around the planet, but none includes the sky.
The idea faces significant challenges - UNESCO's conventions do not mention the space above and around heritage sites, and there's still the question of how to define a piece of open sky for conservation purposes.
The darkening of Tekapo began in 1965 to serve the Mount John Observatory that opened on nearby Mount John. Town officials later turned necessity into a virtue by expanding controls on public and private lighting in a 19-mile ring around the town and observatory to keep the sky dark.
Three new housing developments have spent extra money for "sky-friendly" lighting. A skating rink even installed special lighting to prevent ultraviolet light reflecting off its ice surface into the night sky.
"We've got a dark sky and we've got to hang on to it," said Murray, who also runs a sky-watching ecotourism company.
Not that people here are bumping into each other or driving blind during the night hours. And anyway, there's plenty of starlight, as residents note.
"We're certainly not living in the dark," said Lorna Inch, a real estate agent. "We've got a beautiful sky that we all enjoy many nights of the year. There's a lot of natural light from the stars," plus those dimmed residential lights.
Some 150 years ago, unlit nights were the friend of a sheep rustling legend named James McKenzie and his faithful dog, Friday, as they stole through the landscape, driving flocks of stolen livestock deep into the basin that is now named after him.
Today a bronze statue of McKenzie's sheepdog stands - not floodlit - on Tekapo's lake front.
Resident Fraser Gunn, a night sky photographer, said people initially worried that with the light restrictions they wouldn't be able to develop the town. "But that isn't the case at all."
Regional economic development manager Phil Brownie said the lighting control ordinances "are not severe at all ... they do allow the community to develop and build ... and haven't imposed any difficulties."
Anna Sidorenko-Dulom, UNESCO coordinator of Astronomy and World Heritage, calls the sky park "an interesting proposal which needs to be evaluated," but adds that existing guidelines don't allow for protecting the sky.
"We cannot promote sky protection or sky recognition through the Convention on World Heritage. These are two completely different things," she said by telephone from Paris.
The chairwoman of New Zealand's National Commission of UNESCO, Margaret Austin, is more positive. She expects the park idea to be considered by UNESCO's general conference in October.
The former science minister says other countries interested in the idea are La Palma in the Canary Islands, Hawaii, Easter Island, the Galapagos Islands, Portugal, Canada, Romania and northern Chile.
Death Valley, Calif., is one of several U.S. national parks working to keep its lights low, the better to see the night sky. In Thailand, people living alongside the Mae Klong River say the fireflies are dwindling in number, chased away, they believe, by the ever-spreading glow of electric light.
"There's enough movement now among the principal players for it to gather momentum," said Austin. "The main sticking point is to get the criteria in the convention changed so it can include the sky above the land."
Atop Mount John, an astronomy guide's green laser stabs the night, picking out another stellar feature for the astro tourists.
For the guide, Chris Monson from Phoenix, Tekapo offers a chance to see something long lost to city-dwellers - "such pristine, dark skies."
Back in cities like Phoenix, grandparents may have seen starlit skies, but "now it's just something we hear about," he said. "We don't get to experience the stars and those constellations."
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