Peruvian family claiming Machu Picchu take fight to UN heritage body

A Peruvian family that used to own Machu Picchu is taking its fight for compensation for the Inca citadel from the country's government to the United Nations' heritage body.

The Abril family has already launched five lawsuits in Peru over the matter since 2004 and believes the compensation due could potentially run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

The family were the owners of the estate that included the archaeological ruins when they were 'rediscovered' by the American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911 and brought to the attention of the world.
Edgar Echegaray Abril, 70, still has the deed of sale dated June 14, 1910, showing that his family paid in gold for the estate where Machu Picchu stands.
In 1944 they sold the estate to the Zavaleta family but the contract stated that the ruins did not form part of the sale as they were being expropriated by the state.
But the expropriation was never formally completed and the Peruvian government has never paid compensation despite long having treated both Machu Picchu and the surrounding land as state property.

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Fausto Salinas, the lawyer representing the Abrils, is now appealing to Unesco to help settle their compensation claim by putting pressure on Peru's government.
"Unesco must know that the same way it protests to the government when it does not adequately protect Machu Picchu, it also should call its attention to this matter," Mr Salinas said.

"The state said at that time [1944] 'we're going to expropriate,' but the process was never completed, and in Peru, as in international law, if the property is not expropriated from you, you don't lose it." Mr Salinas is also representing the Zavaleta family, which is claiming compensation for 22,000 hectares of land lying inside what is now the Machu Picchu Archaeological Park.
The Peruvian government insists that the land and citadel "belongs to all Peruvians" and that State ownership is recorded in the regional land registry.
But the families claim the registration was carried out improperly in 1997 and is invalid and are now hoping Unesco, which declared the citadel a World Heritage Site in 1983, will help their case.

The number of visitors to Machu Picchu peaked at 858,000 in 2008 but has since been capped and fell to 700,000 in 2010. Around 90 per cent of Peru's tourism revenue is estimated to be linked to the site.