We Must Protect South American Rock Art
The article argues that South America's Northern Lowlands, despite containing abundant rock art and petroglyphs, have only one World Heritage inscription and minimal legal protections. It highlights the Piedra de los Pilones site in Venezuela and the broader Negro-Orinoco-Lake Valencia corridor, a 1,706-mile river system where Indigenous rock art has existed for millennia. The author points to a perfect storm of threats: erosion, climate change, mining, vandalism, and uncontrolled tourism, exacerbated by a lack of coordinated conservation.