Peru’s Ministry of Culture has cut off half of the protected areas around the Nazca Line, an action that archaeologists warn that could allow UNESCO World Heritage Sites to occupy the mining industry.
The NASCAR Line was created about 2,000 years ago, a group of huge dents or geographical blinds made on about 600 square miles of desert floors outside the Peruvian capital Lima. Since the early 19th century, aerial surveys in the Nazca Plain have identified marks similar to hummingbirds, orcas, monkeys and recent cats, one of which could become a casualty of battles of Peru’s mineral resources, environmentalists, and even former representatives of Peru’s cultural ministry.
The NASCAR Archaeological Reserve has been reduced from about 2,162 square miles to 1,235 square miles. Sidney Novoa, technical director of nonprofit Amazon Conservation, said that the areas now excluded from environmental protection measures overlap with about 300 offers – defined here as government-designated areas for the purpose of extracting minerals from public lands, which are owned by informal miners in the process of legalizing their operations. This move comes amid rising global precious metal prices, in Peru’s gold finance, which has led to violence, territorial disputes between official mining entities, informal gold miners and gangs.
Reduce “exposure in protected areas” [the reserve] Former Environment Minister Mariano Castro told guardian. “The Ministry of Culture has not considered expanding hundreds of mining activities that will accumulate influence on the existing sensitive archaeological areas in NASCAR.”
In 1994, UNESCO designated the boundaries and geographical inscriptions between Nasca and Palpa, a world heritage site that “witnesses culture and magical religious traditions and beliefs.” The site is a huge tourist attraction for Peru, and archaeologists have rapidly increased the list of world geographic elements due to the development of technology.
In 2019, a team of Japanese researchers from Yamagata University discovered more than 140 geographic elements in NASCAR, including images of Lamas, two-headed snakes, birds and alpacas. A year later, the ministry announced the discovery of a cat etching dates from 200 BC to 100 BC, making it the oldest famous geographical element in Nasca. In 2022, the same team added 168 newly identified geographic elements and revealed four more discoveries in 2023 through a combination of field measurement and artificial intelligence.
Peruvian Minister of Culture Fabrica Valencia spoke on National Radio on Saturday, saying that the reduction in protection is “update”, “which is “a response that more accurately reflects the relationship between geotactic words and the physical characteristics recorded in the region, ensuring their protection and preservation. ”
