Formulating a protection process for a World Heritage

The case of Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System

Abstract

Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System, entered the UNESCO Representative List of World Heritage in 2014, in the Cultural Itinerary category. Its territory has a 6,000 km route and a network of more than 30,000 km of roads, distributed over six countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru). The road network’s origin dates more than three thousand years old, and the Incas, 150 years before the arrival of Europeans in South America, improved the road network to articulate their country, the Tahuantinsuyo. Such articulation lasts until today, with many of the roads still alive due to the knowledge related to the paths.

This article presents part of the strategy for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage associated with the Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System, built in a series of international workshops held between 2017 and 2019. The dynamics of the workshops allowed the confrontation of different realities existing in each country, whether in terms of its state of conservation, or the different forms of management carried out in each one of them. The challenge was to seek indicators that would allow a comparison between existing policies, in an international cooperation action for the preservation of this World Heritage.