{"id":40304,"date":"2018-09-16T08:20:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T07:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=40304"},"modified":"2018-09-16T08:20:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T07:20:12","slug":"archive-3607","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-3607\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive 3607"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ecological catastrophe that turned a vast Bolivian lake into a salt desert <\/strong><\/p>\n

What was once the country\u2019s second largest lake is now a salt flat and the vanishing waters are taking an indigenous community\u2019s way of life with them<\/p>\n

Laurence Blair in Oruro<\/p>\n

Thu 4 Jan 2018 07.00\u00a0GMT Last modified on Fri 5 Jan 2018 02.25\u00a0GMT<\/p>\n

A boat lies on its side on the salt flat that used to be Lake Poop\u00f3. Photograph: Laurence Blair<\/p>\n

The remainder of an ancient sea at the heart of South America is fast becoming a memory: a white expanse of salt stretches for miles, with just a smear of red, brackish water at its southern edge.<\/p>\n

Lake Poop\u00f3 was once Bolivia\u2019s second largest body of water, but when asked how to get to the lake today, locals correct a visitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean the ex-lake; the salt flat,\u201d says Arminda Choque, 23, as she waits outside a mobile dental clinic in Llapallapani, a community of crumbling adobe-and-thatch houses inhabited by the indigenous Urus-Muratos, who have lived off the lake\u2019s abundant fish since time immemorial. \u201cI want my children to leave and go to college. There\u2019s no future for them here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolivia’s second-largest lake dries up and may be gone forever, lost to climate change <\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more<\/p>\n

The high-altitude lake \u2013 habitat to some 200 species of birds, mammals and fish \u2013 had always fluctuated in size. But in recent years, the droughts became longer.<\/p>\n

In November 2014, millions of fish and birds suddenly perished, rotting where they lay. By late 2015, the lake which had once covered 2,400 sq km, dried up completely, seemingly for good. Many blamed the catastrophe on global climate change.<\/p>\n

Now, abandoned fishing boats rust and splinter on the burning salt, amid skeins of desiccated fishing nets and grubby flamingo feathers. In the village of Villa \u00d1eque, stranded inland years ago, Vicente Valero, 48, doubts it\u2019s worth repairing his staved-in canoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water used to come up to here,\u201d Valero says. He recalls week-long voyages; sleeping under the stars in his skiff; casting sweets into the water as a Lenten offering. \u201cNow we\u2019re raising animals and growing quinoa. The first few harvests have been poor,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

The Urus are not natural farmers, says Apolinar Flores, a legal expert with Cepa, a local NGO. The Urus \u201cnever traditionally held more than a scrap of land\u201d: they fished, hunted and bartered. Those who now try to grow food among their indigenous Aymara neighbours often face discrimination and poverty.<\/p>\n

Many have migrated to nearby towns, typically to work as day-labourers. Some have found a measure of success, and cite revived cultural links with the larger Uru-Chipaya group to the west.<\/p>\n

But others are forced to relocate further. With barely 800 Urus-Muratos left living around Lake Poop\u00f3, and their culture fundamentally based around fishing, some fear that one the oldest societies in the Americas could also vanish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe death of the lake is killing people\u2019s hope for their futures in the region,\u201d says Clayton Whitt, a Vancouver-based anthropologist. \u201cIt\u2019s too terrible to contemplate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the dusty town of Colchani, 150km (93 miles) south, Aureliano Mauricio Valero, 42, his wife and daughter scoop salt into plastic bags. Outside on the dazzling Uyuni salt flat, a few dozen former neighbours hack grey-white bricks out of the ground by hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween the three of us, we can do 5,000 bags a day,\u201d he says, earning 125 bolivianos (\u00a314). Mauricio used to work here during the lake\u2019s previous dry spells, but when he returned two months ago with his family, it was for good. He remembers fishing as a boy and casting his nets through the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe enjoyed working,\u201d he says. \u201cOur work is Lake Poop\u00f3, and with that dried up, we\u2019re like orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aureliano Mauricio Valero and family work collecting salt at Colchani, having been displaced from Lake Poop\u00f3 150km to the north. Photograph: Laurence Blair<\/p>\n

A sprinkling of rain early this year briefly refilled part of the lake, only to rapidly evaporate within weeks. Yet there is growing recognition that rising temperatures alone are not to blame.<\/p>\n

Water withdrawals for irrigation from upstream rivers reduce the lake\u2019s size, says Tom Perreault, a geographer at Syracuse University. The huge amount of water used by nearby mines, and the contamination they produce, also has a catastrophic effect, Perreault added.<\/p>\n

On a visit to the state-owned Huanuni tin mine, Bolivia\u2019s largest, the Guardian observed mining waste being dumped directly into the Huanuni river. The tributary, a sickly yellow colour, flows downhill to Lake Poop\u00f3.<\/p>\n

The leftwing government of Evo Morales has \u201cblamed climate change exclusively for the lake\u2019s disappearance, while ignoring the other factors\u201d, Perreault told the Guardian via email. This allows it \u201cto cast blame on industrialized countries, mostly the US, [and] avoid taking any responsibility for the lake\u2019s drying or rehabilitation\u201d.<\/p>\n

An EU-funded \u20ac14m programme operational during 2010-15 \u201cseemed to only nibble around the edges of the lake\u2019s major problems\u201d, says Whitt. The programme\u2019s office in the government building in Oruro is shuttered.<\/p>\n

Nextdoor, its former head, water engineer Eduardo Ortiz, says that he doubts its funding will be renewed. When asked what measures it took, he removes his glasses and starts to cry. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have the resources or the remit to make a difference \u2026 and now even my friends blame me for not saving the lake,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Recent government action involves river dredging and pollution containment efforts, but few think they will be enough. Morales is unlikely to enforce regulations that could hurt the region\u2019s miners, a key component of his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the lake does recover, there may be very few people still in the Urus communities to benefit,\u201d says Perreault. Some want the cautionary tale of Lake Poop\u00f3 to be applied to the larger Lake Titicaca, itself<\/u> under threat.<\/p>\n

Others still hold out hope of sailing the lake again. \u201cWe\u2019re fishermen,\u201d says Mauricio. \u201cAnd when there\u2019s fish, there\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since you\u2019re here\u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026 we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven\u2019t put up a paywall \u2013 we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian\u2019s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters \u2013 because it might well be your perspective, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ecological catastrophe that turned a vast Bolivian lake into a salt desert What was once the country\u2019s second largest lake is now a salt flat and the vanishing waters are taking an indigenous community\u2019s way of life with them Laurence Blair in Oruro Thu 4 Jan 2018 07.00\u00a0GMT Last modified on Fri 5 Jan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}