After five years of quarrels between opponents, defenders of the environment and supporters, the Machu Picchu airport will see the light of day! Listed as a World Heritage Site, this ancient fortress ...

Machu Picchu is giving itself wings!

Audio 02:38

The Machu Picchu site in Cuzco is normally one of the most visited in Peru and Latin America (illustration).

Getty

By: Marina Mielczarek

8 min

After five years of quarrels between opponents, defenders of the environment and supporters, the Machu Picchu airport will see the light of day!

Listed as a World Heritage Site, this ancient Inca fortress is the pillar of Peruvian tourism.

The Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the start of work but the government has just announced that its opening is still scheduled for 2025.

Publicity

It is a Korean tune that resonated in early January in a primary school in this isolated region, near Machu Picchu.

The students received a visit from the boss of the South Korean company responsible for the first works on the grounds of the future airport.

Undoubtedly the desire to gain the confidence of the populations by trying to convince the last reluctant.

Crafts and hiking, the tourist manna

As in all major rural transformations, farmers had to sell their land and go into exile.

But agriculture is not so much supported by the central power.

It is craftsmanship that prevails in the valleys of this Inca citadel.

Rural exodus and flight of young people to cities

Faced with petitions from environmental defenders, the government played the enrichment card.

In all their speeches, political leaders have highlighted the economic fallout.

Five million travelers will pass through Chinchero airport each year (60 km from Machu Picchu.) Many young people are already abandoning the work of the earth.

They see this airport as a chance to find a job in the city.

Annual profits: $ 5 billion

Lissel Quiroz, is Peruvian, sociologist from Latin America.

She understands the dilemma of the inhabitants, witnesses of ecological demonstrations and seduced by the tourist boom in this region of the Andes cordillera: “

The site is already congested!
Imagine, thousands of people a day descend and climb the paths of Machu Picchu.
UNESCO, by classifying this citadel as a world cultural and natural heritage, had estimated an acceptable threshold at 2,500 daily visits!
The sanctuary is located almost 2,500 m in the middle of mountains.
However, it is beyond that we must look, the landscape of the whole region will change.

The latest polls in favor of the airport

The researcher emphasizes that an airport never arrives alone!

Hotels, restaurants and all kinds of shops will be built throughout the Cuzco region and in Chinchero, (the site of construction of the future airport.)

Lissel Quiroz believes that it is the elderly who will suffer the most from these transformations.

Young people may not move around easily, they will return less to their families to take care of the elderly.

Air pollution and drying up of the lake

During all these years of protest, environmental demonstrators have stressed the risk of pollution and even the drying up of the Lake Piuray hydraulic basin, which serves as a water reserve for the inhabitants.

Yet affected by many cases of Coronavirus, residents of Cuzco and the region continue to take trains and buses to Lima, the capital.

Public transport that they regularly denounce.

Not frequent enough and of poor quality.

Their latest protests last month were very well attended.

This shows their fear of witnessing the increase in traffic jams and the lack of trains.

Surveillance cameras, limited visits government promises to protect site

Corruption, pollution, cultural devastation… To counter all these accusations, the Peruvian government has decided to play the card of transparency.

Mount Machu Picchu, and all the constructions of the sanctuary date from the 14th century.

The stones of the Temple of the Sun like those of the other monuments are stacked without mortar.

Just last year, vandals destroyed walls.

Under Unesco supervision

In 2019, the government adopted a law at the request of Unesco.

It sets the maximum of 2,600 visits per day.

Walks limited to three hours.

The site also has new cameras and signposted routes bypassing the most fragile monuments and paths.

For Unesco, all these efforts must be maintained in an intelligent management of the flow of tourists coming from the new airport.

Faced with the slowness of change, and especially encouraged by the announcement of the construction of Chinchero airport, Unesco ended up threatening.

Lima came close to decommissioning the site.

The United Nations wanted to place it on its list of world monuments in danger.

Cesar Moreno-Triana remembers it very well, he is in charge of the site within the United Nations: “

For years, an important issue, waste disposal, was not taken into account.
We succeeded in obtaining with the power of Lima and the local authorities the construction of an incinerator and a factory for plastics

”.

Unesco has no power of constraint.

She can only advise, the services of César Moréno-Triana will be very vigilant on the preservation of sites, populations and the city of Cuzco, 30 km from Machu Picchu.

For this airport, a strict report was requested on the impacts of future constructions.

Regular reviews should be carried out.

The Covid-19 pandemic has delayed work but the government remains confident it is announcing the opening in three years in 2025.

Transport chronicle - Machu Picchu is giving itself wings!