A view of the Cantalloc aqueducts in Nazca, Peru. The dusty and desert land of Ica, on the southern coast of Peru, was the cradle of the Nazca culture, whose inhabitants came to build, more than a 1,000 years ago, miles of underground aqueducts, The site is now threatened by illegal mining. File Photo by Paolo Aguilar/EPA
July 6 (UPI) -- Illegal mining is giving rise to a new type of social conflict in Peru, pitting rural communities against networks operating outside the law, while threatening water sources, ecosystems.
It's also threatening one of the world's most important archaeological treasures -- the Nazca Lines, which are are among the world's most important collections of geoglyphs that include figures of animals, plants and geometric shapes created about 2,000 years ago,.
This warning appears in a social conflicts report by Peru's Ombudsman's Office, which identified six active conflicts related to illegal mining in different regions of the country.
The offcie warned, though, that the scale of the problem could be greater because many cases are never included in official records.
