tagged w/ South America
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Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was sworn in for a second term on Monday, reaffirming in a speech his dedication to the country's poor and accusing the media of aiding his critics.Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was sworn in for a second term on Monday,... more
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Honduras reversed course Monday, saying it will allow a delegation from the Organization of American States to visit the country -- on the condition that the organization's head attends only as an observer.Honduras reversed course Monday, saying it will allow a delegation from the... more
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his ambassador Saturday to go back to Colombia amid tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his ambassador Saturday to go back to... more
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Illegal logging is a threat to the rainforests of Peru. But the indigenous communities are using both ancient knowledge and modern technology to protect biodiversity and stop further destruction.
The lush green of the rain forest offers rich natural resources which the Ashaninka Indians have lived on for centuries. At the Yoreka Atame school of primeval forestry in Brazil, young indigenous and non-indigenous people have been learning how to make use of them in a sustainable way.
Since 2007, the school has taught more than 2,000 participants skills like the cultivating fruit trees, keeping bees, and erecting dams in creeks and lakes to enhance spawning grounds for fish.
"That's how we Ashaninka Indians here in the border region between Brazil and Peru want to pass on our traditional knowledge," said Moises Piyako. He cofounded the Yoreka Atame school together with his brother Benki in 2007.
Political problems between Brazil and its neighbor Peru make life complicated for the indigenous people in the border region.
"We are suffering from Peruvian logging companies, and now the Peruvian government also wants to dig for oil along the border," said Moises Piyako.
Illegal timber-fellers from Peru are increasingly encroaching on the rainforest on both sides of the border.
The land and its resources belong to the Ashaninka, according to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 adopted by the International Labour Organisation, ILO. It recognizes the rights of ownership of the peoples over the lands which they traditionally occupy. But Peru has been trying to circumnavigate international law by granting mining concessions for areas that are owned by indigenous peoples.
"In the process, Peruvian timber companies even illegally enter Brazilian territory," said Ashaninka spokesman Benki Piyako. "Illegal logging is putting our whole region and its biodiversity at risk." (more at link)
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So, to protect their land, they use GPS technology, vlogging, monitoring, satellite photos to show the deforestation, etc. They even sell CO2 certificates.Illegal logging is a threat to the rainforests of Peru. But the indigenous communities... more
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A premature baby that was pronounced dead on Thursday was found to be actually alive hours later at its funeral wake!
The infant, weighing 500 grams (17.6 ounces), had been placed in a box by hospital officials in Asuncion, Paraguay, then taken to the parents home.
The hospital have said that this was "a very unusual case". One would hope!A premature baby that was pronounced dead on Thursday was found to be actually alive... more
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Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru.
Children die from pneumonia and other respiratory infections every year during the winter months particularly in Peru's southern Andes.
But this year freezing temperatures arrived almost three months earlier than usual.
Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March.
Winter in the region does not usually begin until June.
The extreme cold, which has brought snow, hail, freezing temperatures and strong winds, has killed more children than recorded annually for the past four years.
A total of 246 under the age of five have died so far, only half way through the winter months.
One third of the deaths were registered in the southern region of Puno, much of which is covered by a high plateau known as the altiplano which extends into neighbouring Bolivia.
Aid workers say prolonged exposure to the cold is causing hypothermia and deadly respiratory infections such as pneumonia.
Children, who are often malnourished, are more vulnerable to the extreme cold.
Poverty is widespread in Peru's southern highlands and there is a lack of healthcare and basic services.
The government has declared a state of emergency in the affected areas but critics say the cold snaps are predictable and the annual deaths preventable.
Many have blamed government inefficiency for the deaths.
But Peru's Health Minister, Oscar Ugarte, has said regional officials have not effectively distributed government resources.
Meanwhile in the capital, Lima, it has become an annual ritual for businesses and ordinary citizens to donate blankets, clothes and food for the victims of the cold weather in the south of the country.Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold... more
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More than thirty protestors and police died after an indigenous Indian blockade of a highway in northern Peru was violently broken up by the authorities on 5th June 2009. According to reports, around 200 people were wounded.
The protests, in place since 9th April, were in response to government laws and policies that violate indigenous peoples’ rights and make it easier for outsiders to seize control of their territories.
Tribal rights NGO Survival International has published this video in which eyewitnesses to the recent violence in Peru’s Amazon give a dramatic account of what happened.
Recent update: http://www.survival-international.org/news/4737More than thirty protestors and police died after an indigenous Indian blockade of a... more
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The latest research expedition to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field revealed that alpine glaciers in the Chilean and Argentine Andes are disappearing at much faster rates than previously anticipated by the scientific community.
A preliminary analysis by a team of scientists from NASA and Chile’s Valdivia-based Center of Scientific Studies (CECS), which commenced an expedition to the Ice Field in October 2008, sheds light on the alarming speed at which the glaciers are depleting.
The scientists discovered that the masses of ice in the Patagonia are melting in larger proportions and in much higher alpine zones than in any other part of the world, including Alaska and the Himalayas. Glacier ice accounts for around 75 percent of the world’s fresh water.
“The loss of ice mass in the higher zones is the really new phenomenon,” said Gino Casassa, a CECS glaciologist. “At least this is what we are seeing with the preliminary results which we have just received.”
Until recently, it was believed that glacial loss occurred from lower areas, and that snowfall on the higher sections of glaciers would compensate for loss of ice at lower altitudes.
“One hypothesis we put forward was that there could be a positive balance of ice in the high zones because of higher rates of snowfall in these areas,” said Casassa.
But with ice thinning high up and down low, too, loss in glacial mass in Patagonia is likely to be much greater than what has previously been calculated by scientists.
The new findings are also curious because they contradict some former studies.
For example, a previous study found that the Chilean glaciers Trinidad and Pio XI (the biggest glacier in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica) had advanced instead of receded, while the Perito Moreno glacier in the Los Glaciares National Park in southern Argentina had maintained a volume balance.
Between 1944 and 1986 glacial ice in the Southern Patagonia Ice Field was recorded as retreating at an average of 57 meters per year.
end of excerptThe latest research expedition to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field revealed that... more
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You knew the name was funny, but I'm willing to bet it you didn't know it's actually full of "caca"
"According to Peru's Environment Ministry, over 12 million cubic meters of raw sewage are dumped into Lake Titicaca every year.
A slide show in yesterday's El Comercio details the lake's current state and how it got this way. I've translated the captions (thanks again, middle-school Spanish), which explain that Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake and one of Peru's most important tourist attractions, is "an ecosystem menaced by contamination. Because it is part of a closed basin with many rivers and tributaries flowing into it but not to the sea, contaminants that enter Titicaca have little chance of escaping."
The main source of pollution is the lakeshore city of Puno, population just over 100,000. Puno produces 100 metric tons of solid waste every day; much of it ends up in the lake, as does some 70 percent of Puno's untreated liquid waste. This comes not only from homes but also includes runoff from hospitals, factories, tanneries and slaughterhouses: "It carries a toxic cargo of organic materials which compose and produce methane. (Methane is cited as one of the precursors of global warming.)"You knew the name was funny, but I'm willing to bet it you didn't know... more
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Lydia Guevara - granddaughter of Cuban guerilla leader Che - hopes to be at the forefront of another revolution, this time for vegetarianism. The 24-year-old, who has been linked to Russell Brand in the past (!), has posed semi-nude in a PETA campaign.
An image shows her wearing a red beret, camouflage pants and bandoliers of baby carrots while standing with one fist on her hip and the other outstretched in homage to her grandfather.
The print campaign is expected to debut in October in magazines and posters. It will be launched first in Argentina, where Che Guevara was born, and then internationally.
PETA approached Miss Guevara after finding out she was a vegetarian. 'It very much evokes the tag line of the ad, which is 'Join the vegetarian revolution,' they said. 'It's an homage of sorts to her late grandfather.'
The ad is PETA's first campaign promoting vegetarianism in South America.Lydia Guevara - granddaughter of Cuban guerilla leader Che - hopes to be at the... more
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H. Munoz: Latin America no longer is an 'unconditional friend' of the US as China and India increase presence.
Heraldo Munoz (born July 22, 1948) is a Chilean politician and diplomat; and the current Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations. Muñoz was born in Santiago. In 1973, under the Salvador Allende government, he served as National Supervisor of the People's Stores (Almacenes del Pueblo) until the coup d'état of September 11, 1973. He holds a Ph.D. from Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado (1978), a Diploma in International Relations from the Catholic University of Chile (1975, graduated with honors), and also took courses at Harvard University. He received a B.A. with a major in Political Science at the State University of New York, Oswego. Recipient of the "Distinguished Alumnus Award" from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver (1991), he was bestowed with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the State University of New York (1996). He has received fellowships from: Resources for the Future, the Ford Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the MacArthur Foundation. He was a Ph.D. fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. (1977). He later taught at the University of Chile's Institute of International Studies. He co-founded the Party for Democracy (PPD) and participated in the executive committee of the campaign to vote "no" on a second term for Augusto Pinochet during the 1988 plebiscite. During the administration of Patricio Aylwin, Muñoz was made permanent representative for Chile to the Organization of American States, (1990-1994) and ambassador to Brazil (1994-1998) during the government of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. At the start of the administration of Ricardo Lagos, Muñoz was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Relations until January of 2002, when he was designated Minister Secretary General of Government, a position from which he exercised considerable influence over policy, advising Lagos. He left the ministry in 2003, after being appointed Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, permanent representative, the position which he holds today. Chile was elected a temporary member of the United Nations Security Council for 2003 and 2004, while Muñoz served as ambassador. Muñoz was chairman of a special UN committee on al Qaeda sanctions, during which he noted a reluctance by many countries to cooperate in reporting names and information to the committee and in acting on information received by the committee. He was troubled by al Qaeda's continued ability to circumvent sanctions, which he said "need more teeth". In January 2004, Muñoz served as the President of the Security Council. Most recent books: A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons, Fulcrum Publishing, 2008 (also in Spanish) and The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet, Basic Books, 2008. Newsweek said about The Dictator's Shadow: Heraldo Muñoz has written "an insightful and poignant new personal memoir of the Pinochet years." The Washington Post stated: Muñoz has produced "a meticulous and vivid new book...Muñoz delivers a compelling, personal account of life in a police state and a strong reminder of how far Chile has come." The Washington Post listed The Dictator's Shadow among the best books of 2008. The New York Times featured Munoz's life and work in its Saturday Profile (November 15, 2008, pg. A6).H. Munoz: Latin America no longer is an 'unconditional friend' of the US as... more
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Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in Peru.
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in Peru. The Indians have been protesting against laws which will open up communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging and mining. Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from Bagua Grande in Peru.Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in... more
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Scientists in Bolivia say that one of the country's most famous glaciers has almost disappeared as a result of climate change.
The Chacaltaya glacier, 5,300m (17,400 ft) up in the Andes, used to be the world's highest ski run.
But it has been reduced to just a few small pieces of ice.
Many Bolivians on the highland plains, and in two cities, depend on the melting of the glaciers for their water supply during the dry season.
The team of Bolivian scientists started measuring the Chacaltaya glacier in the 1990s. Not long ago they were predicting that it would survive until 2015.
But now it seems, the glacier has melted at a much faster rate than they expected.
Photos taken in the last two weeks show that all that is left of the majestic glacier, which is thought to be 18,000 years old, are a few lumps of ice near the top.Scientists in Bolivia say that one of the country's most famous glaciers has... more
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If anyone needs a reminder of the on-the-ground impacts of global climate change, come to the Andes mountains in Bolivia . At 17,388 feet above sea level, Chacaltaya, an 18,000 year-old glacier that delighted thousands of visitors for decades, is gone, completely melted away as of some sad, undetermined moment early this year.
"Chacaltaya has disappeared. It no longer exists,'' said Dr. Edson Ramirez , head of an international team of scientists that has studied the glacier since 1991.
Chacaltaya (the name in Aymara means ''cold road'') began melting in the mid-1980s. Ramirez, the assistant director of the Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in nearby La Paz , documented its disappearance in March.
Approximately 35 miles from La Paz , it takes an hour and a half to drive the gravel and rock road up tortuous switchbacks to the top of the mountain of the same name. Visitors on a clear day -- and there are many such days -- can see the Bolivian highland plain, or altiplano, thousands of feet below, and the nearby Huayna Potosi and Illimani mountains, part of the Cordillera Real de los Andes.
Ten years ago Ramirez and his team of researchers concluded that the glacier would survive until 2015. But the rate of thaw increased threefold in the last decade, according to their studies. He believes the disappearance of Chacaltaya is an indication of the potent effects at higher elevations of the interaction of greenhouse gas accumulation and an increase in average global temperatures.
And he thinks other glaciers in the region also may be melting at a rate faster than previously known. Illimani, the colossal 21,200-foot mountain that looms over the city of La Paz and has served as the backdrop for postcard-perfect pictures since film was invented, is the home to several glaciers. They likely will melt completely within 30 years, he said.
''It's very probable that other glaciers are disappearing faster than we thought,'' he said. Researchers fear that Chacaltaya's fate will be shared by other glaciers in other areas of Bolivia , and in Peru and Ecuador as well, he said.
In May, the members of Ramirez's research team will gather here to honor the fallen glacier and to commemorate the end of 18 years of work.
end of excerptIf anyone needs a reminder of the on-the-ground impacts of global climate change, come... more
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The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is an attempt to expand the failed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to every country in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, except Cuba. Negotiations began right after the completion of NAFTA in 1994 and were supposed to have been completed by January 1, 2005.
But an exciting thing happened: the FTAA was not signed on January 1st. Led by strong social movements across the hemisphere, countries like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil have said NO to a model that has increased poverty across the globe, and are instead searching for a better model of regional integration.
Add your support to the thousands of people who are organizing to show that NAFTA should not be expanded but should be replaced with an international system of cooperation that fosters social equality, human rights, cultural diversity, environmental sustainability, and community well being. We've stopped the FTAA - for now. And now we MUST STOP CAFTA!!
Groups around the hemisphere have also been working together on an alternative agreement that will offer a workable vision of what a fair trade agreement would look like (see www.asc-hsa.org).The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is an attempt to expand the failed North... more
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The IMF and World Bank are knocking on Latin America's door. A headline in Tuesday's Washington Post reads, "Latin America Appears to Warm to IMF." But that is not what Bolivia's Evo Morales--the country's first indigenous president--said last week when he spoke in front of the United Nations on Earth Day. Morales told reporters that the IMF had "blackmailed" his country and that privatization of basic services and natural resources was not an option.
GRITtv had a chance to sit down with Morales and discuss his equality agenda, socialism, and the Bolivian banking system.The IMF and World Bank are knocking on Latin America's door. A headline in... more
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Rendon Herrera, 43, who according to police is the leading figure in Colombia's drug-trafficking, right-wing paramilitary groups has been arrested in Columbia.
Columbian officials had offered a reward of up to $2m for information leading to his capture and he was finally arrested in the northern Colombian city of Apartado in a raid involving 300 police.
The Drug Enforcement Administration chief of intelligence Anthony Placido said Rendon Herrera is wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges and that the US government would seek his extradition for trial.Rendon Herrera, 43, who according to police is the leading figure in Colombia's... more
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Natt
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Good interview with a very dedicated woman who has tracked these penquins for over twenty years and sees the changes taking place.
Q. HOW DID THE PENGUIN PROJECT BEGIN?
A. In the early 1980s, a Japanese company went to the Argentine government and said, “We’d like a concession to harvest your penguins and turn them into oil, protein and gloves.” There was a public outcry. This was during a military dictatorship when dissidents were being thrown into the ocean from airplanes. And yet people said, “We object to having our penguins harvested.”
So the military regime did what any government facing a controversy might do — they said, “Let’s have a study.” Not long after that, the Wildlife Conservation Society entered into an agreement with the Argentine Office of Tourism and the Province of Chubut to set up a research project at Punta Tombo where there was the world’s largest colony of Magellanic penguins. Once that agreement was in place, it was the end of the concession idea.
I came to Punta Tombo in 1982 to determine how many penguins were actually there. I didn’t think I’d be doing a long-term study of them. But we didn’t know how long wild penguins lived. With time, we discovered that penguins are quite long-lived, 30 years, more. So I’ve ended up going to Argentina every year since 1982.
Q. WHAT DOES YOUR RESEARCH INVOLVE?
A. I’m a kind of census taker of the 200,000 breeding pairs of penguins at Punta Tombo. I track who is at home, who gets to mate, where the penguins go for the meals, their health, their behaviors.
On a typical day, I’ll get up before dawn. The penguins rise early, but they spend the morning calling to each other from their nests and socializing. Around 8 or 9, they head down to the beach. Once they’re out, we check the nests, see who’s stayed behind, weigh the babies, band them, and we put satellite tags on some birds so we can track them while they’re swimming.
I’m interested in where they go. Through the tagging we’ve been able to show that in the last decade, the birds are swimming about 25 miles further in search of food. They’re having trouble finding enough fish to eat. That costs a penguin energy and time while their mate is sitting on the egg, starving. So when they return to the nest to relieve their mate, they arrive in poorer body condition. And then, the mates also have to go farther to find food.
These penguins are now laying eggs on the average three days later in the season then they did a decade ago. That means that the chicks may leave for sea at more inopportune times, when fish may not be close to the colony. Many will not survive to come back and breed. The Punta Tombo colony has declined 22 percent since 1987. That’s a lot. This type of penguin is considered near-threatened. Of the 17 different penguin species, 12 are suffering rapid decreases in numbers.
Q. Why is this decline occurring among the Magellanic penguins?
A. Changes in the availability and abundance of prey. And we think that’s due to both climate change and exploitation of the penguins’ food sources by commercial fisheries.
There’s also oil pollution in the South Atlantic. There’s dumping from ships. For a while in the 1980s, 80 percent of the dead penguins found along the coast were covered in oil. In 1994, we were able to get the Chubut authorities to move the oil tanker lanes further from the coast. That’s helped.
But as the birds take these longer migrations in search of food, they sometimes find themselves outside of Chubut’s protected areas. Some of our tagged penguins have been located as far north as Brazil. When they’re in the waters of northern Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, where the laws against oil dumping are less enforced, they’re encountering problems.
more at the linkGood interview with a very dedicated woman who has tracked these penquins for over... more
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Drought in the Amazon is imperiling the rainforest ecosystem and global climate, reports new research published in Science.
Analyzing the impact of the severe Amazon drought of 2005, a team of 68 researchers across 13 countries and 40 institutions found evidence that rainfall-starved tropical forests lose massive amounts of carbon due to reduced plant growth and dying trees. The 2005 drought — triggered by warming in the tropical North Atlantic rather than el Niño — resulted in a net flux of 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere — more than the combined annual emissions of Japan and Europe — relative to normal years when the Amazon is a net sink for 2 billion tons of CO2.
The findings suggest that in the face of warming climate, relying on tropical forests as a massive carbon sink is a perilous proposition, raising questions about the effectiveness of schemes to offset industrial emissions by protecting rainforests without also curbing fossil fuel use. Should droughts worsen on a global scale, forests could become a net source of emissions, exacerbating climate change.
"For years the Amazon forest has been helping to slow down climate change. But relying on this subsidy from nature is extremely dangerous", said lead author Oliver Phillips, referencing newly published research indicating that tropical forests have absorbed as much as a fifth of fossil fuel emissions in recent decades.
"If the earth's carbon sinks slow or go into reverse, as our results show is possible, carbon dioxide levels will rise even faster," Phillips, a professor at the University of Leeds, added. "Deeper cuts in emissions will be required to stabilize our climate."
The researchers estimate that old growth forests in the Amazon store roughly 120 billion tons of carbon in their vegetation and process — through photosynthesis and respiration — 18 billion tons of carbon annually, or more than twice the emissions from fossil fuel use. Given this massive scale of carbon cycling, "relatively small changes in Amazon forest dynamics therefore have the potential to substantially affect the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and thus the rate of climate change itself," they note.
Overall the study found that a 100-millimeter (4 inch) increase in water deficit triggers the loss of 2.7 tons of aboveground forest carbon per hectare. However the impact of drought may be even worse — dry conditions greatly increase the risk of forest fire, including small surface fires that can inflict serious harm in even old-growth rainforest.
Drought also affects the species composition of the forest. Some species, especially fast-growing, light-wooded trees, are particularly vulnerable to reduced rainfall.
"Amazon drought kills selectively and therefore may also alter species composition, pointing to potential consequences of future drought events on the biodiversity in the Amazon region," the authors write.
"Drought threatens biodiversity too," said co-author Abel Monteagudo, a Peruvian botanist with the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
Unlikely other research that has relied primarily on satellite imagery to measure drought stress (including one that suggested dry conditions enhance growth in the Amazon), the study was conducted under RAINFOR, a research network that monitors death rates and growth among more than 100,000 trees in 100 forest plots across the Amazon's 600 million hectares. The granularity of the study allowed scientists to directly measure changes that would not be otherwise readily apparent but may have big impacts.Drought in the Amazon is imperiling the rainforest ecosystem and global climate,... more
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Bolivia accounts for a tiny fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it will soon be paying a disproportionately high price for a major consequence of global warming: the rapid loss of glaciers and a subsequent decline in vital water supplies.
by carolyn kormann
Earlier this year, the World Bank released yet another in a seemingly endless stream of reports by global institutions and universities chronicling the melting of the world’s cryosphere, or ice zone. This latest report concerned the glaciers in the Andes and revealed the following: Bolivia’s famed Chacaltaya glacier has lost 80 percent of its surface area since 1982, and Peruvian glaciers have lost more than one-fifth of their mass in the past 35 years, reducing by 12 percent the water flow to the country’s coastal region, home to 60 percent of Peru’s population.
And if warming trends continue, the study concluded, many of the Andes’ tropical glaciers will disappear within 20 years, not only threatening the water supplies of 77 million people in the region, but also reducing hydropower production, which accounts for roughly half of the electricity generated in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.
Chances are that many of Bolivia’s Aymara Indians heard little or nothing about the report. But then the Aymara — who make up at least 25 percent of Bolivia’s population — don’t need the World Bank to tell them what they can see with their own eyes: that the great Andean ice caps are swiftly vanishing. Those who live near Bolivia’s capital city of La Paz need only glance up at Illimani, the 21,135-foot mountain that looms over the city, and watch as its ice fields fade away. Their loss adds to a growing unease among the Aymara — and many Bolivians — who realize that the loss of the country’s glaciers could have profound consequences.
The Aymara worship the ice-draped mountains as Achachilas, or life-giving deities, whose meltwater is vital to a region that suffers a five-month dry season and relies on agriculture to survive. Now, as greenhouse gas emissions heat the earth, the Aymara are bracing for a future in which glaciers no longer can be counted on to supply life-sustaining water.
In recent decades, 20,000-year-old glaciers in Bolivia have been retreating so fast that 80 percent of the ice will be gone before a child born today reaches adulthood. So far this melting has brought temporary increases in stream flow and contributed to massive Amazonian floods that forced several hundred thousand people from their homes last year.
But within the next decade, scientists predict that this torrent of meltwater will turn into a trickle as glaciers shrink, meaning that the age-old source of water during the dry season will steadily dwindle. Some highland farmers near La Paz already report decreased water supplies.
“Here you have precipitation only part of the year,” said French glaciologist Patrick Ginot as he stood at 16,500 feet next to Zongo glacier last year. “But it’s stored on the glacier and then melting throughout the year, and so you have water throughout the year. If you lose the glacier, you have no more storage.”
In effect, underdeveloped countries such as Bolivia are paying dearly for the massive energy consumption of the United States and the industrialized world. The so-called “carbon footprint” of the average Bolivian peasant is negligible, yet Bolivia’s poor are not only among the first to feel the harsh effects of climate change, but also are sorely lacking the resources to adapt to it.
“The grand question here is, who compensates,” says Oscar Paz, director of Bolivia’s National Climate Change Program, “because we are not culpable for climate change. It’s not fair that a country like Bolivia, which emits 0.02 percent of global greenhouse emissions, already has annual economic losses from the impacts of climate change equivalent to four percent of our GDP.”
More at the linkBolivia accounts for a tiny fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it will... more
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