INTREPID Dorset explorer Col John Blashford-Snell has been accused of making fake claims about discovering a lost Inca city and of dynamiting his way through a rain forest, damaging the environment.

But Col Blashford-Snell, aged 65, a close friend of the Prince of Wales, claims the accusations are the "dirty tricks" of jealous rivals, though he does admit to using dynamite in a South American jungle during his latest expedition.

Even so, the Bolivian government has taking the unprecedented step of issuing an international press statement denouncing the colonel's latest exploration as "scientifically worthless and at best flawed".

Last year, Blashers, as he is known to his friends, including the heir to the throne, returned from South America to a hero's welcome.

Newspapers around the world ran stories that he had stumbled on the fabled lost city of Paititi, where the Incas are reputed to have fled more than four centuries ago to escape the Spanish conquistadors. Headlines screamed: "Is there anywhere left for explorers to discover?" and "Britons find lost city of the Incas".

But a damning indictment has come from Juan Faldin, a Bolivian archaeologist sent by the country's Institute of Culture, to supervise part of Blashers' expedition.

He has reported in a 50-page document to his government: "The discoveries are worthless. From an archaeological perspective, the expedition is a fraud."

Blashers, now a pensioner, who has been a role model for several decades of young people in Bournemouth, Poole and the whole county - indeed nationwide - is deeply hurt by the attack on his credibility. He is currently preparing for the fourth and penultimate phase of the now criticised expedition.

About 60 people, mostly Britons, paid an average £2,000 each last year to take part in the four-month third trip.

The Bolivian government report alleges that so-called great discoveries were, in fact, nothing more than wooden platforms and structures left by explorers in the 1950s.

Another savage critic is Dr Alexei Vranich, a world-renowned anthropologist from the University of Pennsyl-vania, who was in Bolivia at the time.

He said: "As far as the lost city was concerned, it was like my saying I'd discovered Central Park. The Bol-ivian culture minister told them that everything they found had been discovered before. They even declared that a piece of natural stone was a monolith used in religious rituals. The guides found it very amusing and by the end of it all they were having fun piling up stones and calling the directors of the expedition to say they had found another statue."

Elizabeth Currie, of the University of York's archae-ology department, condemned the use of explosives in the rain forest as "disreputable". She said: "You cannot call yourself a scientific expedition and behave like this. You shouldn't destroy sensitive ecosystems or the archaeological record by using dynamite."

The dynamite was used to clear a 10-mile tourist trail through the jungle.

Blashers retaliated: "We never claimed to have found the lost city of Paititi. Others tried to make it seem we had said that, but we were always careful about our claims.

"I have serious doubts whether there even is a Paititi. It may be a bit like Eldorado - always over the next hill. All we can say is we found a site we were asked to look for. I am not an archaeologist and my job was to find a way there, build a trail to it and map it. That's what we did.

"There is a huge amount of rivalry between various foreign groups working in Bolivia. Three senior Bolivian archaeologists working with us were full of praise for what we achieved and we worked under their direction."

In addition to inventing white-water rafting, Blashers co-founded the Scientific Exploration Society, of which he is the current chairman. He also co-founded Operation Raleigh in 1984 with the Prince of Wales.