Heavy machinery destroys some Nazca lines | Hacker News Reader

Heavy machinery destroys some Nazca lines

peruthisweek.com

56 pointscodecurve13 comments

The title is a bit sensationalist. None of the famous animal ones were destroyed, just some of the straight line ones. It's ridiculous that a company felt that they could just quarry over part of a UNESCO world heritage site, but the title makes it seem like they're all gone when that isn't the case.

From the About Us: "PeruThisWeek.com and LivinginPeru.com are part of the Peru Experience family, a company whose goal is to promote Peru all over the world"

I think the underlying message in this bit of sensationalist journalism is that foreign tourists to should hurry and visit the Nazca lines right away, before they get completely destroyed and are forever lost.

The sad thing is that Peru can barely balance the tourist traffic it gets already while still preserving its natural sites and artifacts. Who know how much damage to the lines would result from a rush of tourists trying to see them before they are gone?

You wrote: "The sad thing is that Peru can barely balance the tourist traffic it gets already while still preserving its natural sites and artifacts. "

Any facts/numbres to back up this claim ?

Do you mean Machu Pichu (Where this is true) or all of Peru ?

I recently visited Nazca and it was not particularly busy at all. ( Compared to last years visit to Yosemite valley it was refreshing not to wait in line to see anything)

Yeah, sorry, no numbers... I was drawing on anecdotal experiences.

I've also been to Nazca and my impression was that though the tourist traffic was only a tiny fraction of Machu Picchu, the town couldn't handle much more of it. Even in off season the airport was booked to capacity and people had to wait hours for scheduled flights.

Another example (besides Machu Picchu) that comes to mind is Paracas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracas_National_Reserve). It's hardly a mainstream tourist attraction, but the degradation from the tourist industry was pretty apparent when I visited in 2009, despite being a protected area.

At Macchu Picchu they still allow tourists to climb all over the site. It's a wonderful experience...but it's simply not sustainable.

I was in Peru for a month at the beginning of the year and there were similar rumors abound regarding the closing of the famous Inka Trail in a few years. Not to lessen the story but sometimes I wonder if some of these are planted to encourage people to visit these place "before they're gone".

From what I saw, these popular tourist sites are fine as the government realizes the importance of their preservation to maintain the tourist industry. Every guide I talked to about the Inca Trail rumor said it will never happen. They close the trail every February (slowest season, dangerous too with the rain) for maintenance and also limit the number of groups on the paths at anytime by issuing a limited number of permits.

This isn't required in Nazca, as you fly over on a plane, so beyond the carbon impact of flying, I can't see it getting to a point where there are "too many tourists" that would damage the lines.

I grew up across the street from David Johnson[1], who spent a lot of time in Peru an Chile researching the Nazca Lines, and got to hear some very interesting and scary near-death stories from him about run-ins with the companies ruining the area - very sad to see just how much ruining is going on.

[1] http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/JohnsonD1.php http://people.umass.edu/proulx/Nasca_Lines_Project.html

AFAIK, 'world heritage site' is just a marker indicating that "UNESCO considers it in the interest of the international community to preserve each site". It does not, by itself, carry any legal force.

If so, claiming a land owner can't do something to his property because it is part of such a site has no legal basis, but only a moral one.

I'm pretty sure you are correct - we live in a UNESCO World Heritage site (Edinburgh New Town) and all the they seem to do is "request" and "urge" the local authority to be sensible about planning and development decisions.

Link to Nazca lines in sattelite imagery: http://goo.gl/maps/ehh0w

Which ones are the historical valuable ones and which ones are tire tracks?

There are close to a thousand lines/drawings. Tire tracks are the ones that look like tire tracks :)

Close-up of the are with the most interesting ones: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=peru+nazca&hl=en&ll=-...

News from yesterday's Reddit front page.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com