At Lake Titicaca, Isla del Sol residents feel the strain of climate change and pollution

Photo source: SATRIA NANGISAN/Shutterstock. Retrieved from preventionweb.net

“For our grandparents, the cycles of nature were predictable. It rained when it was supposed to rain, and the frost fell when it was supposed to fall. Everything was very orderly, and that gave them confidence,” recalls Gonzalo Pusari, a community and tour leader in Yumani, a village on the southern shore of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca.

Shared between Peru and Bolivia, Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, and the largest in South America. It is located more than 3,800 metres above sea level, and its surface of over 8,500 km² is as large as the cities of London, Paris, Los Angeles, Bogota, Madrid and Mexico City combined. More than 3 million people depend on its waters for their livelihoods.

The lake was a ceremonial, commercial and productive centre of the Inca Empire and, prior to that, of cultures such as the Tiahuanaco and the Chiripa. Today, however, the Aymara, Kichwa and Uro Indigenous communities that inhabit its shores are seeing its waters dwindle, the flora change and fish die. The climate crisis and pollution threaten not only the lake, but also its inhabitants and their way of life, traditions and livelihoods.

Pusari lives on the Isla del Sol, an island in the southern part of Titicaca, where he manages the community’s waste collection and, alongside his neighbours, the responsible use of water for household and irrigation purposes. Since the area lacks a centralised garbage collection system, they take it upon themselves to collect, recycle and clean the land, and aim to limit plastic use. He says the island is suffering: “But we fight on. It is our mission to take care of this ancient legacy.”