“Machu Picchu threatened by a new international airport,” read a headline in Courrier International on 17 May 2019: “The opening of a new international airport in Peru could endanger Machu Picchu, symbol of Inca civilization. Historians and archaeologists fear irreversible damage to a monument already under strain.”
It's hard to believe. The Inca citadel was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2011, the World Heritage Committee declined to place Machu Picchu on the List of World Heritage in Danger, but added it to a watch list instead. The citadel has indeed been struggling with “an excess of visitors” and faces threats from “the construction of a nearby road.”
As a result, Peruvian authorities were required to submit a “report on the state of conservation” of Machu Picchu. The outcome: timed entry slots and visiting hours were introduced, and more recently (as late as May 2019), Peruvian authorities decided to limit tourist access to two temples and one pyramid — the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Condor, and the Intiwatana pyramid. Each day, a maximum of 6,000 tourists, split into two groups, are allowed up to three hours to visit the three monuments.
And paradoxically, Peruvian authorities are making it easier to reach the site by air, at the environment's expense, even as the train remains the standard approach today. One step forward, three steps back!
