Greenpeace has earned a reputation for protecting whales using radical methods. It seems their zeal doesn’t extend to protecting World Heritage Sites. The famous Nazca lines of Peru, estimated to be from 1,500 to 2,000 years old are some of the most fragile and magnificent links to our past on the planet today. Even if you don’t know the name or what country they are in, Peru, you know the images the site is famous for. The Nazca lines are those images in the desert of the hummingbird, monkey, spider, geometric shapes, etc. You’ve probably seen them on shows about UFO’s where the site is usually referred to as an “ancient” landing site for UFO’s. What it really meant to the people who created it we may never know. What we do know is that the images were made by scraping the thin, fragile, layer of dark soil away from the lighter colored soil beneath it.
The site is so fragile and considered so sensitive that the government of Peru hasn’t allowed people into the area for over seventy years. They allow tourist companies to fly over the area, which is considered the best way to view the images anyway but only people with a need to be in the area for legitimate scientific reasons are allowed in. And when allowed in they have to wear special shoes to protect the fragile surface of the area.
You can see a close up picture of the shoes in this story here.
As you may know Greenpeace decided to take a group of “volunteers”, probably donors, to do a “special action” for the big climate summit that was going on in Lima, Peru. The action was to march, wearing regular shoes and hiking boots, in a straight line, to one of the most famous images, the hummingbird figure, and lie down a cloth message held down by rocks they brought with them and then had a drone photograph the message! As you can see from the PBS video and a shorter version of that is here?Greenpeace basically defaced and damaged something that has lasted since the time of Christ!
Greenpeace has “apologized” to Peru. It’s not certain how an organization issues an apology for destroying something more valuable and precious than, to use an example, the Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty, and an original copy of the Declaration of Independence combined (especially since the ages of those three combined wouldn’t equal HALF the age of what was destroyed.) Nor has Greenpeace complied with the Peruvian government’s legitimate and rightful request that the people who did this be turned over to authorities to be tried for this crime.
What Geenpeace has done is apologize for “the distress” they caused! When you read the half assed “non” apology “apology” it sounds more like a smarmy politician who got caught with the proverbial “live boy or dead girl.” Destroying/defacing a country’s most prized cultural landmark IS NOT the way to call attention to the problem of climate change.
Watch this PBS News Hour story of the lasting damage done by Greenpeace to the site for more information.
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
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