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Protection for the desert |
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At first the inhabitants of Nazca laughed at the woman who swept the desert,
because Maria removed carefully the dust from the drawings with a broom. But when
the touristy upswing came, Doctora Reiche was soon admired like a saint.
In 1955 it was the effort of Maria Reiche, which prevented that in the desert
of Nazca irrigation systems were built. That fight against the bureaucracy she
won. A great success is her book “Secret of the desert” which she published in
1968 in German, English and Spanish. She used the American Studies Congress,
which was held in Lima 1970, to talk about her matter, the protection of the
soil drawings. But nothing happened, so she paid a watchman for the desert
since 1976.
Also she succeeded common with her sister Renate to had a lookout
tower erected at the Panamericana, from where you can see some figures and lines.
With that tower should be avoid, that curious tourists crush and distracted
the delicate drawings furthermore. At last in 1995 the lines of Nazca were set
under protection of the UNESCO. At the end of her creative activity Maria Reiche
was decorated five times with the honorary doctorate and the highest decoration
of the Peruvian government as well as the first class order of Merit of the
Federal Republic of Germany. The Peruvian nationality was awarded her as an honour,
because she never gave up her German ones.
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