2023-11-05 07:00:30
Every day, Marta Quispe scans the sky. She smells the rain: “She approaches, wants to fall, then leaves, carried away by the clouds”deplores the woman, dark and wrinkled face, living on the Uros archipelago, Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, whose waters are shared between Peru and Bolivia. Around her, the immensity of the lake resembling an inland sea: 950 cubic kilometers of fresh water reserves and a gusty wind blowing against a desperately clear sky. This deep blue gives beauty to the landscapes, and today causes despair for the three million inhabitants living on its islands and its surroundings.
Quipata Island, once entirely surrounded by water and accessible by boat or car via bridges, in Quipata, Peru, October 14, 2023. PAUL GAMBIN FOR “THE WORLD” Left. Los Uros, the floating islands of Lake Titicaca made of “totoras” (reeds). Right: Iovana Porcela, a leader of the Los Uros community, in Los Uros, Peru, October 14, 2023. PAUL GAMBIN FOR “THE WORLD”
Lake Titicaca, the highest freshwater lake in the world, at 3,812 meters above sea level, on the edge of the Andean Altiplano, is facing one of the worst droughts in eighty years. On certain shores, the water has receded up to two kilometers, sometimes revealing banks of white sand, sometimes cracked earth which, on the outskirts of cities, appears littered with plastic waste.
At this time of year, the first sporadic rains should have tinted the fields surrounding the lake green, before the rainy season begins in earnest in December, and lasts until March or April. But in this month of October, everything is desperately dry: the grass is yellow, the soil is dehydrated and temperatures are at record highs for the Andean Altiplano.
The concern is palpable
“We are facing an exceptional situation and are entering a period of extreme drought reminiscent of that of 1943”, comments Juan José Ocola affably, in his office in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, about a hundred kilometers southeast of the lake. He is the director of the Lake Titicaca Binational Autonomous Authority, a decision-making body led by the two Andean countries. In 1943, due to lack of precipitation, the lake had reached its lowest level: less than 2.5 meters high. “Thousands of people were forced to emigrate” towards the cities, he explains, agricultural production having collapsed. The lake, and its network of rivers that feed it, had lost its power as a guarantor of food and water security in the region.
We are not there. But the consequences are being felt for the inhabitants who live from livestock farming – ten million heads of cattle and alpacas to feed –, from subsistence agriculture, and from tourism.
On the Uros Islands, a group made up of around a hundred floating reed micro-islands, inhabited by ethnic groups of the same name – the oldest inhabitants of the lake –, as well as by Aymara populations, the concern is palpable. They are among the most affected by the rain deficit; their entire way of life depends on the lake.
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