Ecobreves – BOLIVIA: Funds Needed to Save Dinosaur Tracks

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TARIJA, Nov 14 2005 (IPS) - The municipal government of Sucre needs 1.5 million dollars to conserve and protect Cal Orko, the world’s largest bed of dinosaur tracks. A tectonic fault, rain, wind, erosion and the activity of Bolivia’s largest cement facotry threaten the 1.2 km wall of rock, 100 meters high, that holds the impressions of more than 5,000 footprints of 294 dinosaurs.

Roxana Acosta, Sucre’s municipal tourism director, told Tierramérica that the city government began negotiations with Bolivian and international organizations to collect funds to begin a conservation project this year for the wall dating back to the Cretaceous period.

The international science team that certified and is studying the discovery is headed by Swiss paleontologist Christian Meyer.