Description

Machupicchu Historic Sanctuary is a world-renowned protected area, known for its impressive Incan archeological complexes, sites, and monuments--which are of great historical and cultural value. The Sanctuary is also environmentally valuable because it contains forests and steeply sloped, snow-capped mountains. It is a transition zone between the Andean and Amazonian ecosystems and has components of both. The terrain is predominantly rugged with steep slopes. 

Biodiversity

Native vegetative remnants of the mountain ecosystem are protected in the Sanctuary. When considering native species, genetic banks, and ecosystems, biological diversity is extremely high and a conservation priority. Flora is particularly diverse, with species from nine life zones living here; they range from species typical of high Andean forests, to those typical of lower-altitude mountainous forests like epiphytes, shrubs, and palms. Vegetative formations present in the Sanctuary are fundamental to these unique ecosystems. The protected area is a habitat for threatened species like the spectacled bear, cock-on-the-rock, and Andean deer. 

Threats

Threats to Machupicchu Historic Sanctuary include excessive tourism, absence of Environmental Impact Studies (EIA) and Environmental Adjustment Programs (PAMA), energy transmission lines, solid waste generation, burns and forest fires, unsustainable agriculture and grazing, landslides, material extractions, exotic plant introductions, incomplete physical and legal tenure of occupied lands, a multitude of stakeholders and a complicated management system, and a lack of alternative route studies for the Machupicchu Pueblo-Machupicchu Inca Village Highway.