HISTORIC SANCTUARY OF MACHU PICCHU PERU

One of the most important and most visited PreColumbian sites in the Americas, an outstanding symbol of Peruvian national pride and Inca civilisation. The ruins are a uniquely sited royal winter retreat, religious sanctuary and mausoleum of the Inca rulers from Cuzco built around the middle 15th century, superbly constructed and integrated with a spectacularly beautiful landscape. Its sheltered and remote location has preserved a very rich endemic and relict flora and fauna, including the rare spectacled bear.

COUNTRY: Peru

NAME: Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (Santuario Historico de Machu Picchu)

MIXED CULTURAL & NATURAL WORLD HERITAGE SITE: 1983: Inscribed on the World Heritage List under Cultural Criteria i & iii and Natural Criteria vii & ix.
IUCN MANAGEMENT CATEGORY: V: Managed Resource Protected Area

BIOGEOGRAPHICAL PROVINCE: Yungas (8.35.12)

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: The site is in south-central Peru, 75 km northwest of Cuzco in the highest part of the eastern Andes, sited on a narrow ridge 650m above the Rio Urubamba, an upper tributary of the Amazon, at 13°10’19” to 13°14’00”S by 72°30’05” to 72°34’33”W.

DATES AND HISTORY OF ESTABLISHMENT:
c.1440-60:The settlement built as a sanctuary by the Inca Pachacuteq Yupanqui;
deserted by c.1560;
1911: Re-discovered and studied by H. Bingham of Yale University;
1981: Created a National Historical Sanctuary by Law DS 001-81-AA;
1983: Designated a Mixed World Heritage site, part becoming the Archaeological Park of Machu Picchu;
1998: Draft masterplan prepared; 1999: Machupicchu Management Unit created by Decree 023-99-AG;
2001: Management Advisory Committee established.

LAND TENURE: The Republic of Peru, Department of Cuzco (Peruvian Delegation to UNESCO,2005). Administered by the National Institute for Culture (INC) and the National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) plus the national Vice Minister for Tourism and the President of the Cusco regional government.

AREA: 32,592 ha.

ALTITUDE: Ranges from 1,850m to >4,600m. The ruins lie at 2,430 ha.

PHYSICAL FEATURES: The site lies between the selva alta and yunga zones of the Andean plateau in the steep and highly dissected topography of the eastern high Andes, rising from a deep gorge to glacier-bearing mountains. The ruins rise just above cloud forest on the flattened top of a narrow steep-sided ridge which rises within but some 650m above a meander of the Rio Urubamba (Rio Vilcanoto) canyon. The spectacular site is on the northern end of the Cordillera de Vilcanoto facing the Cordillera de Vilcabamba across the valley which rise in the nearby tutelary mountain of Cerro Salccantay to 6,271 meters, and lies in the shelter of these peaks. The ridge forms a saddle at 2,430m between a humpbacked mountain (Machu Picchu, 2,795m) and a pinnacle, Huayna Picchu (2,667m) which overlook the ruins. The remaining buildings are single storey and built of a local white granite. They comprise the upper ceremonial buildings - palace, temples and tombs - separated by a long plaza from the peoples’ housing and agricultural terraces below.

Geologically the area is a complex of intrusive lavas and metamorphic rocks. Ordovician schists, slates and quartzites lie under a layer of Cretaceo-Quaternary marine sedimentary rocks. The area is prone to earthquakes and a fault line crosses the site. There are hot springs nearby at Aguas Calientes. Most of the soils are acid, poorly developed and shallow. In the valleys below, colluvial and alluvial soils and rocky detritus predominate. The hillsides were carefully terraced by the Incas to conserve the thin soil, but under heavy rains the slopes are liable to landslides and erosion, especially on the steep backslope of the ridge. The Urubamba river, which is an upper tributary of the Amazon, flows below the site in a canyon, but its alluvial basin as far as Quillabamba to the north, the ‘Sacred Valley of the Inca’ is an almost continuous band of arable and pastoral farmland fed by many side valleys and flanked by innumerable irrigated terraces, forming one of the most productive areas in the Andes. From Machu Picchu the ’Sacred Road of the Incas’ or Inca Trail across the mountains links the site with the old Inca capital of Cuzco 100 km up the valley which is also reached by road and rail in the valley.

CLIMATE: The site is sheltered by the snow-capped mountain ranges of Salccantay to the south and the peak of La Verónica to the east. The climate on the mountain is humid but temperate. At 2,500m the average annual temperatures range between 12°C and 15°C with annual rainfall averaging 1,950 mm and frequent mist. On the high paramo the diurnal variation in temperature exceeds the fairly constant annual range. The agricultural valley below is warmer: the temperature there averages 16°C and the rainfall ranges between 1,850mm and 3,000mm. The wet season lasts from October to April. The winter, between May and September is dry and is the season for forest fires in the lower forest and the paramo, though the cloud forest between the two remains moist.

VEGETATION: The site is on the margin between the Andean and Amazonian ecosystems, possessing elements of both. Because of the altitudinal range, irregular terrain and long alteration by man, it possesses a great diversity of habitats within a short distance: riverine vegetation, humid and very humid low montane subtropical forests, humid evergreen and quasi-cloud forests, cultivated fields, terraces which have reverted to grass and secondary scrub or woodland, with above the ruins, bamboo, Polylepis thickets and paramo grasslands. Its montane forests, though partially degraded, contain one of the richest and most threatened of all floras.
LOCAL HUMAN POPULATION: The original inhabitants were skilled irrigators who built terraces and drainage channels that extend long distances across irregular ground and still exist in many places. The population is of the Quechua-speaking descendents of the pre-Columbian inhabitants who live in seven small communities and number about 1,200 within the Sanctuary itself. The local population, including Aguas Calientes (Machupicchu village), was 3,500 in 2004 (Shoobridge et al.). At present over half the Sanctuary (20,000 ha) is settled by campesino communities and farmers, especially on the lower slopes which are routinely burned to stop encroachment by the forest and to provide pasture. Much burning occurs for no apparent reason in August and September, perhaps in the belief that the smoke causes cloud build up and the onset of much needed rains (Manu Wildlife Centre, n.d.). Agriculture, for maize, potatoes, yucca and fruit, and the cash crops of coca, coffee and tea, with grazing mainly for small animals but also for llamas, cattle and sheep (some 1,400 in 2004) form the traditional support of the people. But the local economy is increasingly augmented by tourism. Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu village) 8 km away in the valley below, sprang up as an unplanned shanty town after the railway arrived to service tourists but is now the district administrative capital with growing strongly pressed claims to the facilities and use of 40% of the Sanctuary’s budget. The district is the fastest growing area in the country, rising from 1,303 inhabitants in 1993 to 3,436 in 2005; half remain very poor and half are migrants, coming in for the tourist season. But in this temporary population there is no traditional culture to instil respect for the sacred place (UNESCO-IUCN-ICOMOS, 2007). Cusco, 75 km south, is a city of over 100,000 inhabitants and the administrative and commercial centre for much of the Urubamba basin.

VISITORS AND VISITOR FACILITIES: Machu Picchu is Peru’s most popular tourist destination, growing from 180,000 visitors in the 1980s to over 400,000 in 2003, averaging 3-400 a day but some 1,500-2,000 a day in the high season and likely to increase (Shoobridge et al.,2004). There were 691,623 visitors in 2006 (75% foreign) and the number is likely to rise (UNESCO-IUCN-ICOMOS, 2007). The Management Plan advised that to reduce environmental deterioration, the archaeological site should not support more than 917 visitors per day and no more than 385 visitors at any one time The INC recommend a maximum carrying capacity of 2,000 visitors a day with an increased entry fee. The government favors the higher number of 3,400 (UNESCO,2002). A suggested daily limit of 2,500 visitors paying a higher entrance fee may be enforced (Leffel, 2005).

Visitors generate some $40 million a year. Recent past growth led to a proliferation of uncontrolled and exploitative tour operators and many overcrowding problems, but the site is now better regulated by the government. Cusco is three hours away by railway, a means of approach which facilitates control of visitors and of roadside developments. Access is by bus from Puente Ruinas station up a zigzag track in groups led by approved operators, or on foot, by a 2 to 4-day journey along 38 km of the Inca Trail. This carries 70,000 visitors a year and is now limited by permit to 500 a day in groups of 30. The preservation of Polylepis groves along the route from being used for firewood is important as it also preserves some of the country’s rarest birds. In 2007 a new bridge and road at Carrilluchayoc in the buffer zone, to the growing village of Santa Teresa, to the west, has provided an alternative access to the site and raised fears of destructive overcrowding. At the ruins there is one hotel, a museum, ticket office and overnight campsites, also a steep stepped path up to the top of Huayna Picchu. Tourist facilities are being developed in Aguas Calientes instead of on the mountain itself, and there is a new visitor centre, hotels and restaurants there. 561 rooms were available in 2007 with 16 eating places, employing some 300 people (UNESCO-IUCN-ICOMOS, 2007).

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND FACILITIES: Studies of the site and its approach by the Inca Trail have been continuous ever since 1911. Bingham made several visits, writing books and papers and sending some 5,000 items to Yale. In the 1930s-40s the ruins were cleared, and between 1950 and 1980 much was excavated, examined and restored. But due to its ruggedness only about a third of the whole protected area has been investigated. Vegetation transects have been taken, over 4.500 herbarium specimens collected and numerous bird studies made. The ecology of the spectacled bear has been researched with the cooperation of the New York Zoological Society. Key species are monitored. Many recent researches of potential use to management have been made but few have been used. In 2000 a Japanese earthquake research team made a detailed investigation of soils and landslide potential which is the major unpredictable natural hazard in the area, especially at slope foots, and the ruins are monitored daily. There is a small museum on site and the Wiñay Huayna Research Station, founded in 1985, 3.5 km directly south, has a hostel for scientists.

CONSERVATION VALUE: Machu Picchu is one of the most important, beautiful and most visited PreColumbian sites in the Americas, an outstanding symbol of Peruvian national pride and Inca civilisation. A royal winter retreat, religious sanctuary and mausoleum of the Inca rulers from Cuzco built around the middle 15th century, suberbly constructed and integrated with a spectacular site. Its sheltered and remote location has preserved a very rich endemic and relict flora and fauna, including the rare spectacled bear. The Park lies within a Conservation International-designated Conservation Hotspot, a WWF Global 200 Freshwater Eco-region, a WWF- IUCN Centre of Plant Diversity and in one of the world’s Endemic Bird Areas.

CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT: The site was established to protect the natural heritage and landscape of the ruins and their surroundings, which had been deforested commercially and for firewood for decades. But protection also promoted the area for its value to the tourist industry, conflicting aims which make for difficulty in controlling the site. The Sanctuary is managed according to a five-year Management Plan drawn up in 1998 which was finally adopted in 2005. This divided the Park into seven zones: Strict Protection (no uses except research), Wildlife (light use), Tourism and Recreation (intensive use), Special Use (services and existing settled areas), Restoration (of vegetation), Historic-Cultural (conservation with public use) and Buffer. It was to be implemented by a Management Advisory Committee established by the National Institute for Culture (INC) and the National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) in 2001 to propose policies and facilitate their realisation. This consists of eight organisations: INC, INRENA, the Cusco Regional Government, the Regional Director of Industry and Tourism, the Rector of S. Antonio Abad National University in Cusco, the Governor of the Province of Urubamba, the Mayor of the Machu Picchu District and the Representative of the National Chamber of Tourism.

With the division of authority over the site between INC and INRENA a certain degree of confusion has been institutionalised, further complicated by the creation in 1999 of the Machupicchu Management Unit which combines the Cusco Regional Government, INC, INRENA, and the vice-minister for Tourism, to coordinate rehabilitation of the Sanctuary. However, by 2002 less than half of the Advisory Committee’s mission, mostly short-term projects mandated in the draft management plan, had been realised due to the difficulty the Committee found in agreeing on long-term issues and policies. A UNESCO report in 2002 noted that many of the 38 recommendations made by ICOMOS and IUCN missions to the Sanctuary remained unrealised because of the continued inadequacy of the site’s planning and management and the determined individualism of the area’s stakeholders. There is also a 12-member Technical Group which now specialises in environmental concerns (UNESCO, 2002).

The management is geared to deal with heavy tourist use of the core of the site. Environmental work is undertaken by the Cusco branch of the Ministry of Agriculture. Much of the day-to-day landscape management is done by the local farmers, which includes burning, still a legal practice within the Sanctuary. Forest fires have showed the necessity of monitoring campesino use of the land within the site, of encouraging safer agricultural practices, and of enacting stronger laws to prevent damage. Progress has been made on fire prevention procedures, regulation of land ownership in the Sanctuary, assessment of natural resources, management of solid wastes, the analysis and mitigation of natural disasters and the development of Agua Calientes village. By 2002 the Inca Trail was cleared of trash and the numbers of tourists using it were reduced. The Management Plan mandates or recommends high performance standards, but the practice often falls short of the advice. Four IUCN-ICOMOS missions in 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2007 reiterated the need for inter-institutional management of the natural resources and for coordinated planning of tourism, perhaps reducing tourist pressure by regulating access as if to a sacred site (UNESCO, 2002).

MANAGEMENT CONSTRAINTS: There are many threats to the Sanctuary: excessive tourism considering the relative fragility of the site, the widespread generation of solid wastes, unsustainable agricultural practices, overgrazing and forest fires, all aggravating erosion and the constantly threatening landslides and mudslides, mineral extraction, exotic plant introductions, the hydroelectric plant and energy transmission lines, the absence of environmental impact assessments, a lack of alternative access road studies to the overused Inca Trail, incomplete physical and legal tenure of lands, the multitude of stakeholders and the complicated management system. (Shoobridge et al.,2004). At Machu Picchu, the lack of an effectively implemented plan for the management of the site, difficulties in departmental coordination, and the use by farmers of 57% of the Sanctuary’s land for slash & burn and chemical cultivation plus continual set fires, have all created serious problems. The forest fire of 1988 which destroyed over 4,000 ha of mountain forest and much wildlife, was declared the worst ecological disaster in Peruvian history. A second fire in 1997 which burned 800 ha of forest over five days was probably caused by farmers burning weeds or clearing forest for farmland, demonstrating the inadequate control over the use of the Sanctuary by the local population. In 1998 a major landslide in the nearby Aobamba valley destroyed Santa Teresa, the railway, and affected the power station. In 1999 and 2000 proposed helicopter overflights and installation of a cable car to increase visitor numbers were ruled out to lessen stress on the geologically fragile site.

In 2002 the Intihuatana sundial stone was damaged by an American company shooting a beer commercial and in 2004 a mudslide revealed the site’s lack of any risk preparedness plan. As early as 2000, UNESCO considered declaring the Sanctuary in danger in order to secure its better protection. As reported by Dourojeanni in 1985, the increase in tourist pressure by a proliferation of unregulated tour operators early impacted both the site and the Inca Trail. These have continued to cause overcrowding, excessive littering and solid wastes, erosion and the exploitation of porters, though the government has now limited the number of tour operators and has notably improved conditions. The planning of rail access is done without coordinating with the Sanctuary Management Unit and in 2007 the Carrilluchayoc bridge was built and Machu Picchu village was expanded in defiance of INC, INRENA and Urban District recommendations. The Sanctuary was created to be reached on foot but vehicle access is a growing pressure. The bus traffic causes pollution by oil and creates vibrations on the hillside road; the Urubamba is now one of Peru’s ten most contaminated rivers. The danger from landslides is the most serious natural threat to the Sanctuary and its slopes are covered with landslide debris. They occur quite often on the lower footslopes after rain. Japanese investigators in 2000 concluded that the whole Sanctuary hillside remains active, especially on the north side, where soil movement may be as great as a centimetre a month (BBC,2001; Sassa et,al. 2002).

The Machupicchu Hydroelectric Center in the Aobamba valley just downstream which provides much of the energy for southern Peru is also a threat, importing into the site powerlines, pollution, bridges, roads, migratory farmers, colonists, the risk of fire, deer hunting and increased visitors. The company often works without coordinating with INRENA or INC, or providing a work plan or Environmental Adjustment Program as required by the government. The uncontrolled expansion, on a small riverside bank site subject to landslides and flooding, of the municipality of Machupicchu village (Aguas Calientes) already produces 3 tons of solid waste every day. The district is the fastest growing in Peru and in high season houses and caters for some 3,000 tourists a day. This is an increasingly urgent problem. There are continuing disputes over land caused by incomplete legal records of land tenure which also make the recommended expansion of the buffer zone difficult. The Peruvian authorities do not discuss the Sanctuary’s management with UNESCO, and INC and INRENA submitted separate reports on their work. In summary, despite the fact that the Management Plan has come into force, the Sanctuary’s Management Unit was out of action from 2005 to 2007 and the 2007 UNESCO mission, though approving of much good work, remained very concerned by the lack of support received by the Unit and the lack of overall planning and control of the site. The World Heritage Committee voiced grave concern over governance of the property and noted urgent problems with deforestation, the risk of landslides, uncontrolled urban development and illegal access to the sanctuary (UNESCO-IUCN-ICOMOS, 2007).

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