Shock decision has raised fears ancient site with almost 2,000-year-old geoglyphs will be exploited by illegal miners
Archaeologists and environmentalists have expressed their outrage at a shock decision by Peru’s culture ministry to cut by nearly half the protected archaeological park around the Nazca Lines, excluding an area nearly the size of urban Lima, the country’s capital city.
The Unesco world heritage site attracts thousands of tourists to see the vast hummingbird, monkey and whale figures in the desert in Peru’s second-biggest tourist attraction after Machu Picchu. Last year, archaeologists using AI discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs dating back more than 2,000 years, predating the famous lines in the sand.
