Peru disregards UNESCO and advances with airport that could impact Machu Picchu

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In the second quarter this year, Peru will begin construction works for the new international airport in Cusco, and it will do so without the heritage impact study (EIP) that UNESCO requested from the government in order to determine the damage that this project would cause to the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) said that earthworks and main works will begin in the second and third quarter of 2021, respectively, for the Chinchero International Airport (AICC), some 30 kilometers from Cusco, which will be the gateway to Machu Picchu, the country’s main tourist attraction.

The new airport, which could handle some 6 million tourists a year, is seen as a golden opportunity to reactivate the economy and “permanently eradicate poverty” in the southern Andean region of Cusco, which lives almost exclusively from the flow of tourists who come to visit its archaeological treasures.

But the project has been a source of concern to global heritage organizations since its conception. In recent weeks, faced with the potential start of construction, efforts have intensified unsuccessfully to challenge the AICC, which, according to activists, threatens the preservation of the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchu, the Qhapaq Ñan (Inca Trail) and the city of Cusco, three World Heritage Sites.

No previous study

In early February, World Monuments Fund international organization sent a letter to President Francisco Sagasti urging him to defer the works until the completion of the heritage impact study requested by UNESCO in July 2019.

A few weeks later, the Judiciary accepted an injunction lodged by the “Unión Ciudadana por la Defensa y la Valoración del Patrimonio Cultural y del Ambiente” (Citizen Union for the Defense and Valuation of Cultural Heritage and the Environment) association, which called for the project to be suspended due to the “irreparable damage” it could cause to the region’s cultural and archaeological heritage.

The deadline for submitting the EIP to the United Nations office is August 2021, but in September last year the Executive requested an extension to submit the report, which was commissioned to the US Cultural Site Research and Management company.

In its defense, the MTC maintained that the heritage sites “are not within the direct area of influence” of the airport and assured that it “complies with all the required studies to guarantee that archeological and environmental sites will not be affected.”

The portfolio also added that the EIP “is not a compulsory requirement within Peruvian law for the execution of civil works”, so “the conclusions reached are not binding”.

“A landscape view”

But “in 1972 the Peruvian government signed the convention on the protection of cultural and natural heritage and, therefore, UNESCO does have a say,” said José Hayakawa, president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in Peru, linked to UNESCO.

Hayakawa criticized that starting the works without examining the heritage impact “is a contradiction in terms” focused “on immediate profit”, given that the purpose of an EIP is “to provide a technical opinion” that will allow the airport to be “the best version of itself.”

According to the president of ICOMOS Peru, the MTC’s argument has “an incorrect starting point” insofar as this project “demands a conception that extends beyond the specific material vestiges.”

“The focus of the AICC is on landscape and not on archaeology,” meaning that the project aims to increase the already “enormous” tourist demand in the region, which “has direct impacts” on the heritage, causing material wear and tear or noise and visual pollution.

Hayakawa recalled that the MTC conducted two preliminary EIPs in 2019, which registered up to 60 impacts on Machu Picchu and the Qhapaq Ñan, 39 of them (65%) rated as negative, as reported by El Comercio.

The twelfth highest in the world

According to attorney Julián Palacín, president of the Peruvian Institute of Air Law (IPDA), all objections to the project “are based on political issues,” because “economically, legally and technically, it is viable.”

In addition to the heritage issue, the airport was also rejected by pilots’ associations, which noted that the site presents adverse conditions for aircraft takeoff, among them winds and the closeness of mountains.

In fact, the new air terminal will be built 3.699 meters above sea level and will hold the twelfth position in the ranking of the highest altitude airports in the world.

In this respect, the MTC stated that a study conducted by Advanced Logistics Group (ALG) international company found that “the flight procedures designed are perfectly feasible.”

“Today aircraft technology has changed” and “we are no longer flying the Boeing 727, we are flying the A330,” meaning that “it is a different technology that can handle crosswinds at high altitude airports very well,” Palacín said.

More tourists, less poverty

According to Palacin, this project is the solution to improve Peru’s airport infrastructure, weakened by the “deterioration” and the delay in the construction of the second runway of Lima’s Jorge Chávez Airport.

“If we want tourism to grow, we have to expand the airport infrastructure” of the country and break with the “centralism” of Lima, offering international tourists the option of bypassing the capital and reaching Cusco directly, he added.

The MTC expressed the same opinion, recalling that the goal is to expand the region’s air capacity, which is limited by the current Alejandro Velasco Astete airport, located within the city of Cusco and without the capacity to handle night flights.

It is estimated that Chinchero will boost and consolidate new direct international routes to Cusco from Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Panama and São Paulo, among other major international connection points.

“It could be the low-cost international hub of Latin American tourism,” said Palacín, who believes that the airport “will change the geopolitics” of the region.

The expert also pointed out that “it is necessary to think about the extreme poverty of the southern macro-region” of the country and argued that this airport is “a pending debt of the Peruvian State with the people of Cusco.”

The MTC specified that the project, which involves an investment of over US$670 million, intends to handle between 4.5 and 5.7 million passengers per year and create more than 2.000 direct jobs and some 3.000 indirect jobs, “benefiting more than one million people.”

Source: El Universal