PARACAS, Peru — As the sun set over Paracas Bay on April 7, 2023, a beachside hotel flashed with the lights of an electronic music party. Seen from afar, the building was a fluorescent dot twinkling in the darkness. The event started at 2 p.m. and continued into the night, sending thumping bass frequencies into the neighboring Paracas National Reserve, home to more than 1,500 animal species. By the next day, the Hotel Boutique Atenas and its “We Out There” event had become a news story. Peru’s national agency in charge of protected areas had not authorized the event, which sparked concern about the ill effects of noise pollution on the reserve. The incident is just one chapter in the controversial story of the hotel — apparently built by a former police captain, without an environmental permit, just a few steps from the official boundary of one of Peru’s most emblematic marine protected areas. The Hotel Boutique Atenas is located in the buffer zone of Paracas National Reserve, a cluster of desert and marine ecosystems some 250 kilometers (155 miles) down the coast from Lima, the nation’s capital. It sits on an 11-hectare (27-acre) plot of land known as El Refugio. Today, the owners of El Refugio are locked in a dispute over occupation of the land with Peru’s national ports company, which is accusing them of a crime termed “aggravated usurpation.” Mongabay Latam reviewed the property’s registration papers and analyzed court records and other documents issued by Peru’s National…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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