World Bank to Give Peru Credit Line for the Protection of Machu Picchu

World Bank officials informed this week the institution’s intention to lend Peru $5 million to help authorities there protect the ruins of Machu Picchu and the Incas’ Sacred Valley, the country’s two best-known cultural heritage sites.

Each day, as many as two thousand people visit Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel perched atop the Peruvian Andes. That figure has been growing at a 6 percent annual rate, local tourism authorities say.

A couple of weeks ago, the Peruvian government renewed its pledge before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to check out the implementation of the master plan for the protection of Machu Picchu.

An official report sent to UNESCO by the Andean country’s Tourism Ministry underscores the government’s decision to work much harder to safeguard the former Incan city unearthed in 1911 and that has since then welcomed scores of visitors every year.

Peruvian authorities had voiced its unwavering intention to do everything within its power for the preservation of Machu Picchu and to halt the site’s current state of decline.

“In December, UNESCO will get details of how much headway we’ve made in the implementation of this master plan. Then in July next year, UNESCO will hear about the government’s concrete actions to keep Machu Picchu on the list of the world’s most cherished treasures,” the report indicates.

Machu Picchu receives dozens of thousands of tourists every year. For centuries, archeologists and experts remained on a quest for the lost Incan city, by far the most spectacular pre-Hispanic monument in South America.

The Peruvian government has repeatedly pressed on the need to take care of Machu Picchu, an enclave perched on natural terraces some 70 miles east of Cuzco that forces visitors to make a long journey by train or take a swift ride on a helicopter to get to the top.