Peru Plans to Charge Greenpeace Activists for Damage to Nazca Lines

Greenpeace's sign at the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Nazca Lines.
Image Courtesy of Reuters, and Indian Country Today.com .

December 15, 2014.

William Neuman, of The New York Times, has written a brief article about the damage to the Nazca Lines, an UNESCO World Heritage site, from Greenpeace volunteers.

"Officials said that the activists walking over the fragile desert ground left marks that cannot be removed. The Nazca Lines were created over 1,000 years ago, and include enormous figures of birds, mammals and geometric shapes etched into the earth."

-William Neuman, The New York Times.

To read the full article, click here.

"The Nazca figures were drawn between 500 BC and 500 AD by removing a thin patina of dark rocks covering light sand. This is one of the driest regions of the world, and the lack of water and wind has helped preserve the lines for centuries.

But they're still quite fragile. "When you step on it, you simply break the patina and expose the bottom surface," said Peru's Deputy Culture Minister Luis Jaime Castillo . "How long does it take for nature….to again create a patina? Hundreds of years? Thousands of years? We really don't know." "

-PBS Newshour, io9.

For more information,

Visit:

• Drone Footage Shows Extent of Greenpeace's Damage to Peru's Nazca Site
• io9, December 16, 2014.
• Greenpeace Apologizes for Wrecking Nazca Lines as Peru Prepares Criminal Charges
• Indian Country Today, Deceember 15, 2014.
• Mystery Surrounds Delicate Nasca Lines Threatened by Greenpeace Stunt
• National Geographic, December 8, 2014.
• Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Pampas de Jumana
• UNESCO World Heritage
• Nazca Lines and Geoglyphs
• NascaPeru.com
• UNESCO World Heritage
• New Geoglyphs Found in Nazca Desert After Sandstorm.
• September 3, 2014.
• Field Study Suggests Geoglyphs in Ancient Peru Were Made to Lead Travelers to Trade Fairs.
• August 29, 2014.