In a recent trip to Ica Department, south of Lima, I became fascinated by the Nazca Lines, a series of enormous animal and human figures etched into the Peruvian desert by a pre-Colombian culture that far pre-dated the Incans. The Lines hold stunning potential to bring international tourists to Peru and their reputation is poised to explode as an international tourist industry begins to gain momentum in Peru, led by the steady growth of tourists here to see Machu Picchu. Recent government statistics showed a 16% increase in visitors to that site in 2007 over the prior year. A recent Spanish language episode of the cable TV program, “1000 Places to See Before You Die”, looked at the Lines as one of their featured sites, exporting this destination to tens of thousands of potential visitors across Latin America.
Other than a small observation tower along the highway, the Lines can really only be appreciated by getting into a small airplane and doing a short overflight. Despite my intense curiosity about these ruins and the carpe diem attitude that accompanies me on my trips, I did not do the overflight. A recent rash of airplane near misses and tragic accidents has afflicted these flights, enough to prevent me from even debating with myself the idea of taking one.
The most tragic of these involved the death of five French tourists in April when the light airplane they had chartered for this less-than-an-hour overflight encountered mechanical problems and tangled its landing gear in high tension wires as it tried to make an emergency landing—all of the airplane’s passengers died leaving only the pilot alive. Before that accident, aircraft making overflights frequently had been making emergency landings on the Panamerican highway, that bisects the Lines. A recent article on the Lines, in the tourism supplement of a leading Peruvian newspaper, summarized the situation as follows:
Due to their closeness to Lima, the Nazca Lines have become one of the favorite destinations of foreign tourists, above all Japanese, Europeans, and Brazilians. However, distressing events related to the aircraft that overfly the plains—from emergency landings to serious accidents that have left a terrible balance of several tourists dead—has put Peru in the eye of the storm. Moreover, the Foreign Ministry of France and some travel agencies in Japan have recommended to their countrymen to not go to Peru if their objective is to do an overflight of the Lines. (¡Vamos! El Comercio supplement, June 10, 2008, page 6, my translation)
Thus, while the Lines inherent beauty and mystery are inspiring a growing number of international tourists to visit Peru, this momentum is threatened by the lack of safety in the small industry providing overflights. The same article explains the cause for the lack of safety in this way, “Many overflights have became unsafe due to informality and disorder [in the overflight industry].”
The concept of “informality” has a long history in Peru. Some of the most important work on the subject–putting it center stage in development theory–was done by Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto. Based on research conducted in Peru in the 1980s, De Soto’s work addressed informality in areas such as street vending, housing, and bus transportation. Today, Peru continues to have high rates of informality—nearly 60% of Peru’s workforce today is employed in the informal sector, that is, businesses which, to a larger or smaller degree, comply only partially, or not at all, with labor, zoning, licensing, tax and other laws. In describing the situation of the Nazca overflight industry, the term informality is helpful in that it describes the same situation as that described by De Soto: government authority, which may have extensive ordinances and laws on the books to regulate activity, remains distant from reality by providing no practical way for citizens to comply with regulations and by frequently turning a blind eye to infractions of the law.
Yet, the term, when applied to a situation such as the accident in which the five French tourists died, appears to be a misleading, and somewhat pitiful, euphemism. Informality, is what would be called in a developed country simply, illegality. The difference is that in a developed country the definition of legality is much clearer and the consequences of illegal behavior much surer. In places where there are high degrees of informality, complex laws, which are difficult for businesspeople to comply with, are not enforced. The term “informality” in general properly lifts the stigma off of those who cannot comply with utterly impractical regulation. However, when a lack of effective regulation and enforcement combines with a complex and dangerous activity such as flying aircraft, the result is deadly.
It appears that there are at least three roles, normally fulfilled by the state, which may contribute to the number of safety incidents in Nazca. First, the state has the job of regulating: this would include the licensing of pilots and the performing safety inspections of aircraft. Second, the state, through the justice system sanctions incompliance. These sanctions, when properly designed and consistently applied, provide their own incentives to maintain one’s aircraft and abilities at the proper level. If a sure 20 years of prison face the culprits of negligent homicide, the need to micro-manage compliance with many regulations is much less. Finally, the state has a role in building, financing, and approving infrastructure, a key element to flight safety.
I am not in a position to know in which of these roles there might be insufficiencies in Nazca. However, what appears clear is that the level of informality, that is, the result of a lack of active state involvement, is very high. To be clear, we are talking about a place where it is not tricky to fly: the terrain is mostly flat desert without vegetation; the sky is cloudless and there are not thunderstorms or rain; and the flights, of course, are all done during the daytime in order to see the Lines. The sorts of infractions, in contrast, are rather fundamental: in some of the cases where there have been emergency landings on the highway, the cause was that the aircraft had run out of gas. The reported cause of the accident involving the French tourists was pilot error. The situation in Nazca is an outcome one might anticipate if there was absolutely no presence of the state or countervailing consequence for negligent behavior.
There are hopeful signs that the Peruvian state recognizes its fundamental role in the safety of the Nazca overflights and, in turn, the effect safety has on promoting the Nazca Lines as a key Peruvian destination for international tourists. In the days following the incident with the French tourists, AeroCondor, the company operating the flight, was temporarily suspended from operating flights by the Peruvian government. The newspaper article quoted above reports that:
[T]he Peruvian Ministry of Transport and Communications has put itself into the mix, and in a sort of homage to Maria Reiche, has implemented this week a plan to re-order the services of the 12 operators located in the airport of Nazca. In addition, the decision that it should be the system of aircraft control the one that directs the movements of aircraft is an attempt to standardize operations and leave behind informality.
The article closes with a fascinating quote from Maria Reiche. Ms Reiche was a German archeologist who first came to Peru in the 1940’s to assist one of the early researchers of the lines. She fell in love with site and stayed on in Peru until she died at the age of 95 in 1998. She dedicated her life to the preservation and study of this site, and was the primary force behind the site being named a UNESCO World Heritage site. What is fascinating about the quote from Ms Reiche is less her expression of love for the site; this is something one expects given that the Lines were her life’s work. What is fascinating is the way someone who dedicated her life to an artifact of ancient history, sees their meaning in terms of their relevance for Peru and Peruvians today.
My life is defined until the last minute of my existence. There is not enough time to study the marvels contained in the plains of Nazca and that is where I will die. Everything was for Nazca! If I had 100 lives, I would give them for Nazca. And if 1000 sacrifices I had to make, I would do it, if it were for Nazca.
I want, with my life’s work, to be an instrument to eliminate injustices so that Peruvians, which are a people of special cultural, physical, and moral qualities recuperate their self-esteem. I tell you: I am a chola* because at times I feel most at one with the cholos and more so now that I am a Peruvian citizen.
In effect she is saying that by recognizing the Lines as important, it shifts the internal dynamic of Peru, which tends to see the indigenous past as inferior, uneducated, and poor. Seeing the Lines fulfill their potential as a destination which international tourists flock to and thereby contribute to the economic development of Peru is a goal in the same spirit described by Ms Reiche. That dream is well within reach if the Peruvian state and businesspeople can collaborate to reduce informality and make the Nazca overflights a safe and modern operation.
* the word “chola” is normally an ethnic slur in Peru, to signify someone of Indian heritage
Pingback: Peru » Tourism Peru