VETERAN Dorset explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell today dismissed claims that his last expedition to South America was scientifically worthless and environmentally damaging.

The former Royal Engineer has come under fire for allegedly making unsubstantiated claims about finding a lost Inca city and for using dynamite to clear a riverbed during an expedition to the Bolivian rain forest in May last year.

A report for the Bolivian government has denounced the expedition saying that no new discoveries were made.

Juan Faldin, a Bolivian archaeologist who took part in the Koto Mama expedition to supervise it for the country's institute of culture, said that the discoveries were worthless and that the use of explosives was a disgrace.

But the Colonel has denied the allegations and said: "It is important to understand the background to the investigation of the archaeological site in Bolivia, alleged to be the legendary city of Paititi.

"It is located at the foot of a mountain known as Cerro Paititi and hence it is referred to by local people as Paititi but this does not mean it is the legendary city."

In 1999 Colonel Blashford-Snell was asked by the Bolivian Archaeological Institute to survey the site.

He said: "We mapped the site and as promised made a footpath to it.

"Some 10 miles from the archaeological site it was necessary to use explosives provided by the local government to clear boulders in a riverbed to make a safe crossing and not as stated by Mr Faldin in the rain forest."

He added: "The archaeologists were consulted to ensure that there was no damage to any archaeological remains. Nor was any damage done to the forest.

"As a conservationist and one who fights to save the jungle, I would never permit such a thing."

In the 50-page report Mr Faldin said from an archaeological perspective, the expedition was a fraud and that the Bolivian culture minister told them that everything they found had been discovered before.

But Colonel Blashford-Snell, who is a friend of the Prince of Wales, added: "We must make it clear that at no time did we claim the site was the legendary Paititi.

"The Bolivian ministry of culture made no contact with us at any time regarding the site."

The 65-year-old adventurer, who lives near Shaftesbury, led a team of Royal Engineers, paratroopers and enthusiasts to Bolivia in a bid to test his theories that natives could have sailed from the Andes to the Atlantic seaboard.

The four-month expedition also included surveying a lost city, which was thought to be the fabled Inca retreat of Paititi.

Colonel Blashford-Snell, who invented white-water rafting, also said that the criticisms made by Mr Faldin was a result of rivalry between him and a senior Bolivian archaeologist, Oswaldo Rivera.

He said: "Mr Faldin signed a report at the end of the expedition which does not contain any of the criticisms he is now said to be making.

"However, it was known that he did not agree with the earlier findings by Oswaldo Rivera and I see this as an example of rivalry between them."

Colonel Blashford-Snell is chairman of the Scientific Exploration Society, which he co-founded in 1968 and in 1984 he co-founded Operation Raleigh with Prince Charles.