Peru cracks down on illegal gold miners in Amazon jungle
An update to the Feb. 13, 2011, post about unregulated gold exploitation contaminating and destroying huge swaths of Peru’s mega-diverse southern Amazon jungle:
Destinations
Bickering over Machu Picchu centennial celebration could cause delay of event
The Yale Daily News is reporting that crates marked “fragile” are already filled with artifacts excavated from Machu Picchu and stacked in a corner room in a building on Yale University’s West Campus, ready to go.
Klondike-style gold rush in Peru’s southern jungle threatens carbon offset deals
My friend Barbara Fraser, one of the leading environmental reporters in Peru, published a story today in The Daily Climate describing how accelerated gold exploitation is eating away at the jungle department of Madre de Dios like a cancer.
Orchid specialists to visit Cusco Feb. 25-28 for conservation conference
“The old orchid hunter lay back on his pillow, his body limp with the effort of talking so long. He coughed and a ripple of pain ran through the wasted length of him beneath the covers. Still his eyes burned unwaveringly bright with the memory of the places he had seen and the things he had done, bright with the unquenchable passion for the life he would never suffer or enjoy again.
Yale and Cusco university sign deal for return of Machu Picchu artifacts
An agreement signed Friday between Yale University and Peru’s National University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco will usher the return of thousands of artifacts to Cusco a century after Hiram Bingham removed them from Machu Picchu, the celebrated “lost city” of the Inca.