Fermina Quispe (fourth from the right, standing) poses for photos together with other farmers from the Women's Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which she chairs and with which she promotes crop irrigation with solar pumps in her community, Llarapi Chico, located more than 4,000 meters above sea level in the municipality of Arapa in the southern Peruvian highlands of the department of Puno, a region badly affected by drought. CREDIT: Courtesy of Jesusa Calapuja

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Oct 26 2023 (IPS)

The lack of water is so severe in Peru’s highlands that farming families are forced to sell their livestock because they cannot feed them. “There is no grass or fodder to feed them,” says Fermina Quispe, a Quechua farmer from a rural community located at 4,200 meters above sea level.

Llarapi Chico, the name of her community, belongs to the district of Arapa in the southern Andean department of Puno, one of the 14 that the government declared in emergency on Oct. 23 due to the water deficit caused by the combined impacts of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon."Our great-great-grandparents harvested water, made terraces and dams; we have only been harvesting, collecting and using. But it won't be like that anymore and we are taking advantage of the streams so the water won't be lost. We only hope that the wind does not carry away the rain clouds." -- Fermina Quispe

Arapa is home to 9,600 people in its district capital and villages, most of whom are Quechua indigenous people, as in other districts of the Puna highlands.

With a projected population of more than 1.2 million inhabitants, less than four percent of the estimated national population of over 33 million, Puno has high levels of poverty and extreme poverty, especially in rural areas.

According to official figures, in 2022 the poverty rate in the department stood at 43 percent, compared to 40 percent and 46 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively – years marked by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession of the Peruvian economy could drive up the poverty rate this year.

In addition, Puno was shaken by the impunity surrounding nearly 20 deaths during the social protests that broke out in December 2022 demanding the resignation of interim President Dina Boluarte, who succeeded President Pedro Castillo, currently on trial for attempting to “breach the constitutional order”.

The United Nations issued a report on Oct. 19 stating that human rights violations were committed during the crackdown on the protests, one of whose epicenters was Puno.

Fermina Quispe is president of the Women’s Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which is made up of 22 women farmers who, like her, are getting involved in agroecological vegetable production with the support of the non-governmental organization Cedepas Centro.

The 41-year-old community leader spoke to IPS in Chosica, on the outskirts of Lima, while she participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir (Meeting of Diverse Feminisms for Good Living), held Oct. 13-15.

With a soft voice and a face lit up with a permanent smile, Quispe shared her life story, which was full of difficulties that far from breaking her down have strengthened her spirit and will, and have helped her to face challenges such as food security.

Pumps fueled by 180-watt solar panels draw water from rustic wells to irrigate vegetable crops in the highland greenhouses of Peruvian farming communities. In the picture, farmer Fermina Quispe is helping to move the solar panels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Fermina Quispe

As a child she witnessed the kidnapping of her father, then lieutenant governor (the local political authority) of the community of Esmeralda, where she was born, also located in Arapa. Her father and her older brother were dragged away by members of the Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which unleashed terror in the country between 1980 and 2000.

“A month later we found my father, they had tortured him and gouged out his eyes. My mother, at the age of 40, was left alone with 12 children and raised us on her own. I finished primary and secondary school but I couldn’t continue studying because we couldn’t afford it, we had nowhere to get the money,” she recalls calmly. Her brother was never heard from again.

She did not have the opportunity to go to university where she wanted to be trained as an early childhood education teacher, but she developed her entrepreneurial skills.

After she married Ciro Concepción Quispe – “he is not my relative, he is from another community,” she clarifies- they dedicated themselves to family farming and managed to acquire several cattle and small livestock such as chickens and guinea pigs, which ensured their daily food.

Her husband is a construction worker in Arapa and earns a sporadic income, and in his free time he helps out on the farm and in community works.

Their eldest daughter, Danitza, 18, is studying education at the public Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, the departmental capital, where she rents a room. And the youngest, 13-year-old Franco, will finish the first year of secondary school in December. His school is in the town of Arapa, a 20-minute walk from their farm.

Fermina managed to build “my own little house” on a piece of land she acquired on her own and outside of her husband’s land, in order to have more autonomy and a place of her own “if we have conflicts,” she says.

She also began to look for information about support for farming families, bringing together her neighbors along the way. This is how the association she now presides over came into being.

However, the drought, which has not let up since 2021, is causing changes and wreaking havoc in their lives, ruining years of efforts of families such as Fermina’s.

“We have a water crisis and the families are very worried. We are not going to have any production and the cattle are getting thin, we have no choice but to sell. A bull that cost 2,000 soles (519 dollars) we are selling off for 500 (129 dollars). The middlemen are the ones who profit from our pain,” she says.

During her participation in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir held in Chosica, near Lima, Fermina Quispe, a farmer from the Andes highlands of the department of Puno, in southern Peru, dresses in a colorful lliclla, a handmade Quechua blanket. She is working on solutions in her community to mitigate the impact of a severe drought on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Solar water pumps

In the face of adversity, “proposals and action” seems to be Quispe’s mantra. She wants to strengthen her vegetable production for self-consumption and is thinking about growing aromatic herbs and flowers for sale. To do so, she needs to ensure irrigation in her six-by-thirteen-meter highland greenhouse where she uses agroecological methods.

During her participation in Cedepas Centro’s training activities, she learned about solar water pumps, which make it possible to pump water collected in rustic wells called “cochas” to gardens and fields. She has knocked on many doors to raise funds to set up solar water pumps in her community.

“Fermina’s gardens and those of 14 other farmers in her community now have solar pumps for irrigation and living fences made of Spanish broom (Cytisus racemosus),” José Egoavil, one of the experts in charge of the institution’s projects, told IPS.

“They are small pumps that run on 120- to 180-watt solar panels,” he says in a telephone interview from Arapa.

He explains that the solar panel is connected to the pump, which sucks the water stored in the wells that the families have dug, or in the “ojos de agua” – small natural pools of springwater – present on some farms. Thus, they can irrigate the vegetable crops in their greenhouses, and the living fences.

“It is a sustainable technology, it does not pollute because it uses renewable energy and maintenance is not very expensive. In addition, the families give something in return, which makes them value it more. Of the total cost of materials, which is about 900 soles (230 dollars), they contribute 20 percent, in addition to their labor,” he says.

Egoavil, a 45-year-old anthropologist, has lived in Arapa for three years. He is from Junín, a department in the center of the country where Cedepas Centro, an organization dedicated to promoting food security and sustainable development in the Andes highlands of central and southern Peru, is based,

“The focus of our work is on food security and a fundamental issue is water for human consumption and production. There have already been two agricultural seasons in which we have harvested much less and we are about to start a new one, but without rain the forecasts are not encouraging,” he says.

Given the water shortage, they have promoted the community participation of families in emergency projects such as solar pumps, which help to ensure their food supply.

In addition, long-range water seeding and harvesting works are underway, such as the construction of infiltration ditches at the headwaters of river basins.

The participation of small farming families is the driving force behind the works and they are responsible for identifying the natural water sources for their conservation and the construction of the ditches that will prevent the water from flowing down the hills when it rains.

“The ditch is like a sponge that retains water, but if it doesn’t rain, we don’t know what will happen,” says Egoavil.

A veterinarian by profession, Jesusa Calapuja, born in the Peruvian highlands, participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir, held on the outskirts of Lima, where she spoke about the reality of peasant families in a context of poverty and water shortages due to drought. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Learning to harvest water

Jesusa Calapuja, a 27-year-old veterinarian born in Arapa, is one of the people in charge of technical assistance in agroecological production, planting and water harvesting at Cedepas Centro.

Using the Escuela de Campo (countryside school) methodology, she travels by motorcycle to the different communities where she interacts with farming families. She came with Fermina Quispe to the feminist meeting in Chosica, where IPS interviewed her.

Calapuja also notes changes in the dynamics of the population due to water scarcity. For example, their production no longer generates surpluses to be sold at the Sunday markets; it is barely enough for their own sustenance.

“They don’t have the income to buy what they need,” she says.

She also notices that at training meetings, women and men no longer bring their boiled potatoes or soup made with the oca tuber, or roasted corn for snacks, but only chuño (dehydrated potatoes) or dried beans. The scarcity of their tuber and grain production is evident in their diets.

But Fermina Quispe hastn’t lost her smile in the face of adversity and is confident that her new skills will help the women in her community.

“Our great-great-grandparents harvested water, made terraces and dams; we have only been harvesting, collecting and using. But it won’t be like that anymore and we are taking advantage of the streams so the water won’t be lost. We only hope that the wind does not carry away the rain clouds,” she says hopefully.

These containers hold food produced by women in the rural community of Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco. Ana María Zárate places salad with various vegetables on the right, and the traditional dish mote, made from white corn and broad beans, on the left. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUZCO, Peru, Apr 3 2023 (IPS)

Paulina Locumbe, a 42-year-old peasant farmer who lives in ​​the Andes highlands of southern Peru, learned as a child to harvest and dry crops, one of the ancestral practices with which she combats the food insecurity that affects millions in this Andean country.

“I have tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis), peas and dry beans stored for six years, we ate them during the pandemic and I will do the same now because since I have not planted due to the lack of rain, I will not have a harvest this year,” she told IPS in her community, Urpay, located in the municipality of Huaro, in the department of Cuzco, at more than 3,100 meters above sea level.“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa.” -- Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui

She, like a large part of the more than two million family farmers in Peru, 30 percent of whom are women, has been hit by multiple crises that have reduced their crops and put their right to food at risk.

A study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published in January estimated that more than 93 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean suffered from severe food insecurity in 2021, a figure almost 30 million higher than in 2019.

Compared to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, the situation was more alarming in South America, where the affected population climbed from 22 million in 2014 to more than 65 million in 2021.

In Peru, a country of 33 million people, food insecurity already affected nearly half of the population, according to the FAO alert issued in August 2022, far exceeding the eight million suffering from food insecurity before the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to the increase in poverty and the barriers to accessing a healthy diet.

Women from the Andes highlands areas of Peru, such as those who reside in different Quechua peasant communities in the department of Cuzco in the south of the country, are getting ahead thanks to the knowledge handed down by their mothers and grandmothers.

Putting this knowledge into practice ensures their daily food in a context of constant threats to agricultural activity such as extreme natural events due to climate change -droughts and hailstorms in recent times – the rise in the cost of living and the political crisis in the country which means the needs of farmers have been even more neglected than usual.

Paulina Locumbe, an agroecological farmer from the rural community of Urpay, in the municipality of Huaro, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, shows her recent planting of vegetables in her greenhouse, which once harvested will go directly to the family table to enrich their diet. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Producing enough for daily sustenance

Yolanda Haqquehua, a small farmer from the rural community of Muñapata, in the municipality of Urcos, answered IPS by phone early in the morning when she had just returned with the alfalfa she cut from her small farm to feed the 80 guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) that she breeds, a species that has provided a nutritious source of protein since ancient times.

“I don’t sell them, they are for our consumption,” she explained about the use of this Andean rodent that was domesticated before the time of the Incas. “I cook them on birthdays and on a daily basis when we need meat, especially for my eight-year-old daughter. I also use the droppings to make the natural fertilizer that I use on my crops,” she added.

Haqqehua, 36, the mother of Mayra Abigail, has seen how the price of oil, rice, and sugar have risen in the markets. Although this worries her, she has found solutions in her own environment by diversifying her production and naturally processing some foods.

“I grow a variety of vegetables in the greenhouse and in the field for our daily food. I have radishes, spinach, Chinese onion, chard, red lettuce, broad beans, peas, and the aromatic herbs parsley and coriander,” she said.

She also grows potatoes and corn, which last year she was able to harvest in quantity, although she does not believe this will be repeated in 2023 due to the devastating effects of climate change in the Andes highlands in the first few months of the year.

“Fortunately, I got enough potatoes and so that they don’t spoil, we made chuño and that’s what we’re eating now,” she said.

Chuño is a potato that dries up with the frost, in the low temperatures below zero in the southern hemisphere winter month of June, and that, when stored properly, can be preserved for years.

“I keep it in tightly closed buckets. I also dry the corn and we eat it boiled or toasted. And the same thing with peas. It’s like having a small reserve warehouse,” she said.

Selecting the best ears of corn, carrying out the drying, storage and conservation process is the result of lifelong learning. “My parents did it that way and we are continuing what they taught us. With all this we help each other to achieve food security, because if not, we would not have anything to eat,” she said.

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, a young Quechua agronomist, talks with a farmer in her vegetable greenhouse in the rural community of Muñapata in Cuzco, southern Peru, during her work providing technical assistance for food security to rural women, as part of the Agroecological School of the non-governmental Flora Tristán Center. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Agroecology to strengthen Andean knowledge

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, an agronomist born in the Cuzco province of Calca, is a 34-year-old bilingual Quechua indigenous woman who, after studying with a scholarship at Earth University in Costa Rica, returned to her land to share her new knowledge.

She currently provides technical assistance to the 100 members of the Agroecological School that the non-governmental feminist Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women runs in six rural communities in the Cuzco province of Quispicanchi: Huasao, Muñapata, Parapucjio, Sachac, Sensencalla and Urpay.

“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa,” she told IPS in the historic city of Cuzco.

She stressed that women are leading actors in the face of food insecurity. “They know how to process and preserve food, which is a key strategy in these moments of crisis. To this knowledge is added the management of agroecological techniques with which they produce crops in a diversified, healthy and chemical-free way,” she said.

The expert stated that although they would have a smaller harvest, it would be varied, so they would depend less on the market. Added to this is their practice of exchanging products and ayni, a bartering-like ancestral tradition: “You give me a little of what I don’t have and I pay you with something you lack, or with work.”

Luzmila Rivera (2nd-L) poses for photos together with her fellow women farmers from the rural community of Paropucjio, in the highlands of Cuzco in southern Peru, after participating in a market for agricultural products organized by the municipality of Cusipata, where they sold their vegetables, grains and tubers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Don’t give up in the face of adversity

At the age of 53, Luzmila Rivera had never seen such a terrible hailstorm. In February, shortly before Carnival, a rain of pieces of ice larger than a marble fell on the high Andean communities of Cuzco, “ruining everything.”

In the peasant community of Paropucjio where she lives, at more than 3,300 meters above sea level, she felt the pounding on her tin roof for 15 seemingly endless minutes, and the roof ended up full of holes. “Hail has fallen before, but not like this. The intensity knocked down the tarwi flowers and we are not going to have a harvest,” she lamented.

Tarwi is an ancestral Andean cultivated legume, also known as chocho or lupine, with a high nutritional value, superior to soybeans. It is consumed fresh and is also dried and stored.

Rivera is confident that the potato planting carried out in the months of October and November will be successful in order to obtain a good harvest in April and May.

And like other small farmers in the Andes highlands of Cuzco, she also preserves crops to store. “I have my dry corn saved from last year, I always select the best ones for seeds and for consumption. I also store broad beans, after harvesting I air dry them and in a week they can be stored,” she said.

This provides the basis for their diet in the following months. “I cook the broad beans in a stew as if they were lentils or chickpeas, I put them in the soup or we have them at breakfast along with the boiled corn, which we call mote, it’s very tasty and healthy,” she said.

In another rural community at an altitude of 3,100 meters, Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, Ana María Zárete, 41, manages an organic vegetable greenhouse as part of the Flora Tristán Center’s proposal to promote access to land and agroecological training to boost the autonomy of rural women.

She said it is valuable to have all kinds of vegetables always within reach. “This is new for us, we didn’t used to plant or eat green leafy vegetables. Now we benefit from this varied production that comes from our own hands; everything is healthy and ecological, we don’t poison ourselves with chemicals,” she said.

This knowledge and experience places Quechua women in Cuzco on the front line in the fight against food insecurity. But as agronomist Nina Cusiyupanqui stated, they continue to lack recognition by government authorities, and to face conditions of inequality and disadvantage.

Women and men from the rural community of Sachac, at more than 3500 meters above sea level, build a kilometer-long infiltration ditch to capture rainwater and use it to irrigate crops in Cuzco, in Peru’s Andes highlands. CREDIT: Janet Nina/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUZCO, Peru , Dec 22 2021 (IPS)

“When I was a little girl we didn’t suffer from water shortages like we do now. Today we are experiencing more droughts, our water sources are drying up and we cannot sit idly by,” Kely Quispe, a small farmer from the community of Huasao, located half an hour from Cuzco, the capital of Peru’s ancient Inca empire, told IPS.

She is one of the 80 members of the Agroecological School of the Flora Tristan Peruvian Women’s Center, a non-governmental institution that has worked for the recovery of water sources through traditional techniques known as seeding and harvesting water in this part of the southern Andean region of Cuzco.

Muñapata, Huasao and Sachac are the three rural Quechua-speaking communities in the province of Quispicanchi, located between 3150 and 3800 meters above sea level, that have so far benefited from the project. The feminist-oriented institution promotes solutions based on nature and community work to address the problem of water scarcity and inadequate water use practices.

“We want to boost water security as well as gender equality because they are two sides of the same coin,” Elena Villanueva told IPS. On Dec. 14 she presented in this city the results of the initiative whose first phase was carried out in 2020 and 2021, with the support of the Basque Development Cooperation Agency and Mugen Gainetik, an international association for cooperation with countries of the developing South also based in Spain’s northern Basque region.

According to the National Water Authority (ANA), Peru is the eighth country in the world in terms of water availability, with a rich hydrodiversity of glaciers, rivers, lakes, lagoons and aquifers. However, various factors such as inefficient management of water and uneven territorial distribution of the population, in addition to climate change, make it impossible to meet consumption demands.

“The lack of water severely affects families in rural areas because they depend on small-scale agriculture for their livelihoods. The melting of glaciers as well as the increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts due to climate change are reducing water availability,” Villanueva explained.

This impact, she said, is not neutral. Because of the gender discrimination and social disadvantages they face, it is rural women who bear the brunt, as their already heavy workload is increased, their health is undermined, and their participation in training and decision-making spaces is further limited.

Kely Quispe, a farmer trained at the Flora Tristán Center’s Agroecological School, holds a tomato in her organic garden in the farming community of Huasao. Her vegetable production depends on access to water for irrigation, but climate change has made water more scarce in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco in southern Peru. CREDIT: Janet Nina/IPS

“Moreover, although they are the ones who use water to ensure food, hygiene and health, and to irrigate their crops, they are not part of the decision-making with regard to its management and distribution,” she stressed.

The expert said that precisely in response to demand by the women farmers at the Agroecological School, where they receive technical and rights training, they are focusing on reviving water harvesting techniques used in ancient Peru, while promoting the equal participation of women in rural communities in the process.

She said that approximately 700 families living in poverty, some 3,500 people – about 11 percent of the population of the three communities – will benefit from the works being carried out.

Harvesting water

So far, these works are focused on the afforestation of 15 hectares and the construction of six “cochas” – the name for small earthen ponds, in the Quechua language – and an infiltration ditch, as part of a plan that will be expanded with other initiatives over the next two years.

The ditch, which is one kilometer long in 10-meter stretches, 60 centimeters deep and 40 centimeters wide and is located in the upper part of the community, collects rainwater instead of letting it run down the slopes.

The technique allows water to infiltrate slowly in order to feed natural springs, high altitude wetlands or small native prairies, as well as the cochas.

The mayor of the rural community of Sachac, Eugenio Turpo Quispe (right), poses with other leaders of the village of 200 families who will benefit from the forestation works and the construction of small reservoirs and infiltration ditches that will increase the flow of water in this highlands area that is suffering from prolonged droughts due to climate change. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

In their communal work, villagers use local materials and greenhouse thermal blankets to help retain water. In addition, they have used extracted soil to raise the height of the ditch, to keep rainwater from running over the top.

Although the ditch has been receiving rainwater this month (the rainy season begins in November-December), the ecosystem impact is expected to be more visible in about three years when the cocha ponds have year-round water availability, helping villagers avoid the shortages of the May-October dry season.

Several community members explained to IPS that they will now be able to harvest water from the ditch while at the same time caring for the soil, because heavy rain washes it away and leaves it without nutrients. Some 150 agricultural plots will also benefit from a sprinkler irrigation system, thanks to the project.

Since agriculture is the main livelihood of the families and this activity depends on rainwater, the main impact will be the availability of water during the increasingly prolonged dry periods to irrigate their crops, ensure harvests and avoid hunger, for both villagers and their livestock.

Eucalyptus and pine, huge consumers of water

The mayor of the Sachac community, Eugenio Turpo Quispe, told IPS that this is the first time that water seeding and harvesting practices have been carried out in his area. “We had not had the opportunity before; these works have begun thanks to the women who proposed forestation and the construction of cochas and ditches,” he said.

The local leader lamented that due to misinformation, two decades ago they planted pine and eucalyptus in the highlands of his community. “They have dried up our water sources, and when it rains the water disappears, it does not infiltrate. Now we know that out of ten liters of rain that falls on the ground, eight are absorbed by the eucalyptus and only two return to the earth,” he explained during the day that IPS spent in the community.

Women farmers from the rural community of Sachac show the map of water sources in their area and the uses for irrigation of their crops, for human consumption and household needs, as well as watering their animals, which they cannot satisfy throughout the year due to the increasingly long and severe dry season. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Turpo Quispe said they had seen forestation and construction of cochas and ditches in other communities, but did not know how to replicate them, and that only through the Flora Tristán Center’s project have they been able to implement these solutions to tackle the serious problem of shrinking water sources.

In Sachac, the three techniques have been adopted with the participation of women and men in communal work that began at six in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon. “Side by side we have been planting native plants, digging ditches and hauling stones for the cochas,” the mayor said proudly.

In this community, 9,000 seedlings of queuñas (Polylepis) and chachacomos (Escallonia Resinosas) – tree species that were used in the times of the ancient Inca empire – were planted. “These trees consume only two liters of rainwater and give eight back to Pachamama (Mother Earth),” Turpo Quispe said. As part of the project, the community has built fences to protect crops and has relocated grazing areas for their animals.

“We have planted seedlings and in 10 or 15 years our children and grandchildren will see all our hills green and with living springs so that they do not suffer a lack of water,” the mayor said.

Kely Quispe from the community of Huasao is equally upbeat: “With water we can irrigate our potatoes, corn and vegetables; increase our production to have enough to sell and have extra money; take care of our health and that of the whole family, and prevent the spread of covid.”

“But just as we use water for life, it is also up to us to participate on an equal footing with men in irrigation committees and community councils to decide how it is distributed, conserved and managed,” she added.

A model shows the water sources in the rural community of Muñapata in the Cuzco region, in Peru’s southern highlands. It was made by local women and men who built a system based on ancestral techniques for the collection and management of water, as increasing drought threatens their lives and crops. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

The decade of water security

Villanueva of the Flora Tristán Center said it was important for the country’s local and regional authorities to commit to guaranteeing water security in rural areas within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development was declared for 2018-2028 by the United Nations and SDG6 is dedicated to water and sanitation, to ensure universal and equitable access for all, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, and support the participation of local communities in improving management and sanitation.

“At the national level, public policies aimed at seeding and harvesting water should be strengthened because they revive the communities’ ancestral knowledge, involving sustainable practices with low environmental impact that contribute to guaranteeing the food security of families,” she said.

However, Villanueva remarked, in order to achieve their objectives, these measures must not only promote equal participation of men and women, but must also be accompanied by actions to close the gender gap in education, access to resources, training and violence that hinder the participation and development of rural women.

In the background can be seen the gigantic Cauchari Solar Park and in the foreground are tolas, typical drought-resistant shrubs of the Puna highland plateau. The largest plant of its kind in operation in South America is in the middle of nowhere, a few kilometres from the Kolla community of Puesto Sey, where there are now 962,496 solar panels. CREDIT: Cauchari Solar

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 10 2020 (IPS)

The unprecedented growth of renewable energies in Argentina over the last three years has borne its greatest fruit: the Cauchari solar park, with nearly one million photovoltaic panels and 300 MW of installed power, which was connected to the national power grid on Sept. 26.

The solar park is located in the extreme northwest province of Jujuy some 1,700 km from Buenos Aires, near the borders with Chile and Bolivia, with whom it shares the Puna ecoregion of high Andean plains covered by grasses and shrubs.

The initiative cost 390 million dollars and is the latest reflection of China’s involvement in the Latin American economy: not only the two construction companies but also most of the financing came from the Asian giant."It is the largest operating solar park in South America and we consider it a great boost for changing the energy mix in the entire region…It is still too early to say, because we are in a stage of adjustment and depend on natural phenomena, but it is likely to be one of the most efficient solar parks in the world." -- Guillermo Hoerth

An indigenous shepherd tending his llamas or a herd of wild vicuñas that flee as soon as they see a vehicle approaching are the only sights that attract the visitor’s attention – as IPS found on a recent visit to the area – in the solitude of the arid Cauchari environment, which covers some 800 hectares in the Argentine Puna, at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres.

Between September 2018 and October 2019, 2,664 trucks with containers loaded with Chinese components and technology arrived at this remote spot so far from the large centres of electricity consumption, where water is scarce and it is hard to breathe because of the altitude.

Previously they had disembarked in the Chilean port of Antofagasta, on the Pacific Ocean, or in the Argentinean port of Zarate, on the Atlantic.

“It is the largest operating solar park in South America and we consider it a great boost for changing the energy mix in the entire region,” Guillermo Hoerth, president of Cauchari Solar, a company owned by Jujuy province, told IPS by phone.

“It is still too early to say, because we are in a stage of adjustment and depend on natural phenomena, but it is likely to be one of the most efficient solar parks in the world,” Hoerth added.

The president of the plant explained that the intense solar radiation throughout the year is combined with low temperatures, which help the panels retain heat and make the Puna an extraordinary place for this type of renewable energy.

Cauchari is the greatest success story of the Law of National Promotion of the use of Renewable Energies for the Production of Electric Power, passed by Congress in September 2015.

The new law modified the electric mix of this Southern Cone country, which is the third-largest economy in Latin America, built until then almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, large hydroelectric dams and, to a much lesser extent, nuclear energy.

According to official data, 135 new renewable energy projects, mostly solar and wind, have been launched in Argentina since 2016. The ones already in operation and those that are still under construction represent a combined total of 4,776 MW of installed power, with an estimated investment of close to 7.2 billion dollars.

The entrance to Cauchari Solar Park is reached by a desolate dirt road about 40 kilometres long that connects to paved highway 52, which in the northern province of Jujuy leads to the Chilean border. Technically there are three solar parks, to get around the 100 MW limit set by the tender. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The most graphic reflection of the rise in renewable sources, which under the law have priority over conventional sources, is that they accounted for 9.1 percent of the electricity consumed in Argentina in the first 10 months of 2020 and climbed to a record 11.9 percent in October. Although it must be kept in mind that this occurred in a context of falling electricity consumption due to the drop in economic activity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thus, renewable sources, which until three years ago represented less than two percent of electricity generation in Argentina, reached – with a slight delay – the goal of contributing eight percent of electric power, which Law 27191 of 2015 had set for Dec. 31, 2017.

The law outlines a second stage of the plan, with a goal of reaching 20 percent by 2025. But experts believe this will be virtually impossible to achieve.

The global economic crisis and Argentina’s financing problems – this year the country restructured almost 66 billion dollars of debt with private creditors and still owes some 52 billion dollars to the IMF – are major obstacles.

But they are not the only ones.

“Argentina is a large country, with great potential for solar energy in the north and wind energy in the south,” economist Julián Rojo of the General Mosconi Argentine Institute of Energy, a non-governmental research organisation, told IPS.

But “the problem is that for transporting electricity to the centres of consumption there is a lack of high voltage lines, which today are close to saturation. And there is no intention of investing in new ones,” he said in a telephone conversation.

An engineer oversees the installation of the panels during the construction of the solar park, which involved the arrival of more than 2,600 trucks carrying Chinese technology to a remote area in the Puna high mountain plateau in the northwest of Argentina. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

In Rojo’s view, Argentina does not currently need additional electricity generation, because peak demand was reached in 2017 and, if necessary, the country has an important gas pipeline network that makes it more convenient to build thermal power plants near the centres of consumption.

Making an offering to Pacha Mama for the expansion of the solar park

Marcelo Nieder, director of renewable energy in Jujuy province, told IPS that such a remote location was chosen to build the Cauchari solar park not only because of the excellent solar radiation in the Puna ecoregion, but also because a high-voltage line built in 1999 to export electricity to Chile passes through the area.

“Chile used it to supply its mining industry, but since 2006 Argentina stopped selling to Chile, so there was a possibility to take advantage of the power line,” he explained by phone from Jujuy, also the name of the provincial capital.

Because this high voltage line still has transport capacity the governor of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales, visited Cauchari in October to make an offering to the Pacha Mama – Mother Earth for the indigenous people of the Andean region – and to ask for an expansion of the solar park, up to 500 MW of power.

“We have already designed the expansion and we are betting that China will finance it, as in the case of the park that was already inaugurated,” Felipe Albornoz, president of Jujuy Energía y Minería Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE), the state-run energy and mining company that manages Cauchari, told IPS by phone from the provincial capital.

China’s state-owned Eximbank financed most of the construction, with a 330 million dollar loan that the province of Jujuy must pay back over 30 years, at an annual interest rate of 2.9 percent.

The remaining 60 million dollars were obtained through a green bond issued in the United States, for which the province of Jujuy is trying to postpone the maturity date, according to Albornoz.

Signs in Spanish and Chinese are an unexpected sight in the middle of the untamed landscape of Argentina’s Puna high mountain plateau and are a reflection of China’s heavy involvement in the development of solar power in Latin America. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The president of JEMSE explained that Jujuy expects to sell power to the national electricity market for about 25 million dollars a year. The company projects that Cauchari will produce 840,000 MW/hour per year, which would save the emission of 325,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent into the atmosphere, thanks to the reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

Two percent of the net profits will go to Puesto Sey, a Kolla indigenous community that has collective rights over the land where there is now an endless expanse of solar panels.

The irony is that Puesto Sey, like the other communities in the area, do not receive electricity from Cauchari because they are not connected to the national grid.

Most of the villages and small towns in the Puna, mainly inhabited by Kolla indigenous people, are supplied with electricity from diesel-fueled generators, although in recent years some small local solar parks have been built.

Nor does Cauchari make a difference today in terms of local employment, because although the two-year construction process employed more than 1,500 people, the plant itself only needs 60 to 70 highly specialised technicians.

And perhaps the most difficult question to answer is whether Argentina or any other Latin American country will ever be able to supply such large renewable energy projects with local technology.

Hoerth told IPS that the construction process brought about 100 million dollars to Jujuy’s domestic market, since 22.7 percent of the plant’s electromechanical components were domestically made.

However, the president of Cauchari said the local manufacture of technology for renewable energy sources is still a distant dream.

“I wish we could develop a national industry. But it is very complicated because China has reached such cheap costs that it has flooded the European market,” he said.

Local residents of Churia, a village of some 25 families at more than 3,100 meters above sea level in the highlands of the Peruvian department of Ayacucho, are building simple dikes to fill ponds with water to irrigate their crops, water their animals and consume at home. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

By Mariela Jara
AYACUCHO, Peru, Jun 29 2020 (IPS)

A communally built small dam at almost 3,500 meters above sea level supplies water to small-scale farmer Cristina Azpur and her two young daughters in Peru’s Andes highlands, where they face water shortages exacerbated by climate change.

“We built the walls of the reservoir with stone and earth and planted ‘queñua’ trees last year in February, to absorb water,” she tells IPS by phone from her hometown of Chungui, population 4,500, located in La Mar, one of the provinces hardest hit by the violence of the Maoist group Shining Path, which triggered a 20-year civil war in the country between 1980 and 2000.

The queñua (Polylepis racemosa) is a tree native to the Andean highlands with a thick trunk that protects it from low temperatures. It is highly absorbent of rainwater and is considered sacred by the Quechua indigenous people.

In Chungui and other Andes highlands municipalities populated by Quechua Indians in the southwestern department of Ayacucho, the native tree species has been the main input for the recovery and preservation of water sources.

Eutropia Medina, president of the board of directors of Huñuc Mayu (which means “meeting of rivers” in Quechua), an NGO that has been working for 15 years to promote the rights of people living in rural communities in the region, one of the country’s poorest, explains how the trees are used.

Women from several Andean highlands communities in Ayacucho, Peru, have played a very active role in harvesting water, including protecting the headwaters of streams. In the picture, a group of women and girls are involved in a community activity in Oronccoy, a village about 3,200 meters above sea level. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

“The women and men have planted more than 10,000 queñua trees in the different communities as part of their plan to harvest water,” she tells IPS in Ayacucho, the regional capital. “These are techniques handed down from their ancestors that we have helped revive to boost their agricultural and animal husbandry activities, which are their main livelihood.”

Medina, previously director of the NGO, explains that the acceleration of climate change in recent years, due to the unregulated exploitation of natural resources, has generated an imbalance in highland ecosystems, increasing greenhouse gases and fuelling deglaciation and desertification.

The resultant water shortages have been particularly difficult for women, who are in charge of domestic responsibilities and supplying water, while also working in the fields.

Huñuc Mayu, with the support of the national office of Diakonia, a faith-based Swedish development organisation, has provided training and technical assistance to strengthen water security in these rural Andean highland communities where the main activities are small-scale farming and livestock raising.

The queñua, one of the most cold-resistant trees in the world, is native to the high plains of the Andes, and is culturally valued by the Quechua indigenous people. It is a great climate regulator, controls erosion and stores a large amount of water, which filters into the soil and from there nourishes the springs of the Andean highlands. CREDIT: Esteban Vera/Flickr

This is an area that has recently been repopulated after two decades in which families fled the internal conflict, during which Ayacucho accounted for 40 percent of all victims.

“Huñuc Mayu helped organise the returnees and people who had remained in the communities, and we promoted the planting of fruit trees and connections to markets,”

She explains that “in this process more water and technical forms of irrigation were needed, so through a water fund the communities created projects for the conservation of basins and micro-basins in the area.”

The impact is significant, she points out, because in the past families depended on the rains for their water supply and during the dry season and times of drought they had a very difficult time because they could not irrigate their crops or water their animals.

Denisse Chavez is gender officer at the Peruvian office of Diakonia, a Swedish organisation that promotes rights in vulnerable communities around the world. In Peru it partnered with the NGO Huñuc Mayu to revive ancestral knowledge of the Quechua communities of the Andean highlands and thus strengthen water security for local inhabitants. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Today, things have changed.

Churia, a village of just 25 families at more than 3,100 meters above sea level, in the district of Vinchos, is another community that has promoted solutions to address the water shortage problem.

Oliver Cconislla, 23, lives there with his wife Maximiliana Llacta and their four-year-old son. The family depends on small-scale farming and animal husbandry.

“Here we depend on the alpaca, using its meat to feed and nourish the children, making jerky (dried meat, ‘charki’ in Quechua) to store it, and when we have enough food we sell to the market. We spin the wool, weave it and sell it too,” he tells IPS over the phone.

His family has been able to count on grass and drinking water – absolutely vital to their livelihood – for their 50 alpacas and 15 sheep thanks to work by the organised community.

“We have been working to harvest water for three years,” he says. “We’ve built dikes, we’ve been separating off the ponds and planting queñua trees on the slopes of the hill. Last year I was a local authority and we worked hand in hand with Huñuc Mayu.”

Cconislla reports that they dammed six ponds using local materials such as grass, soil and clay – “only materials we found in the ground.” They also fenced off the queñua plantations.

“Now when there is no rain we are no longer sad or worried because we have the ponds. The dam keeps the water from running out, and when it fills up it spills over the banks, creating streams that run down to where the animals drink so they have permanent pasture; that area stays humid even during times of drought,” he says.

In addition to these ecosystem services, trout have been stocked in one of the ponds to provide food for families, especially children. “As a community we manage these resources so that they are maintained over time for the benefit of us and the children who will come,” he states.

Cristina Azpur, 46, has no animals, but she does have crops that need irrigation. She runs the household and the farm with the help of her two daughters, ages 11 and 13, when they are not in school, because she does not have a husband, “since it is better to be alone than in bad company,” she says, laughing.

For her and the other families living in houses scattered around the community of Chungui, the dam ensures that they have the water they need to grow their crops and raise their livestock, she says.

“I am about to plant potatoes, olluco (Ullucus tuberosus, a tuber whose leaves are also eaten), and oca (another tuber). This month of June we have had a small campaign (special planting of some crops between May and July), and we use water from the reservoir to ensure our food supply, which is the most important thing to stay healthy,” she says proudly.

She politely adds that she cannot continue talking because she must help her daughters, who study remotely through programmes broadcast on public television, due to the lockdown in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the neighbouring town of Oronccoy, home to some 60 families and founded in 2016, Natividad Ccoicca, 53, also grows her vegetables with water from a community-built reservoir.

She and her family, who live at an altitude of over 3,300 meters, have been part of an experience that has substantially improved their quality of life.

“It used to be very hard to fetch water,” she tells IPS. “We had to walk long distances and even take the horses to carry the containers that we filled at the springs. Now with the reservoir we have water for the farm, the animals and our own consumption.”

She also explains that because of the measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 there is greater demand for water in homes. “Can you imagine how things would be for us without the reservoir? We would have a higher risk of getting sick, that’s for sure,” she says.

Women and men work communally to install hoses and irrigate their crops using a sprinkler system, and also for human consumption, in Oronccoy, a village of 60 families in the Peruvian Andes highlands. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

These experiences of harvesting water are part of Huñuc Mayu’s integral proposal for the management of hydrographic basins using Andean techniques in synergy with low-cost conventional technologies to strengthen water security.

Medina highlights the involvement of the communities and the active participation of women, who in the Quechua worldview have a close link with water.

“We see important achievements by the communities themselves and the local people,” she says. “For example, the water supply has expanded in response to the demands of agricultural production and human consumption.”

Medina adds that “women have been active participants in protecting the sources of water and the work involved in raising livestock has been reduced to the benefit of their health. These are major contributions that improve the quality of life of families” in this historically neglected part of Peru.

In the community of Paropucjio, several women stand next to the solar greenhouse they have just built together on the plot of land belonging to one of them, in the district of Cusipata, more than 3,300 metres above sea level in the Cuzco highlands region in Peru. They get excited when they talk about how the greenhouses will improve their families' lives. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUSIPATA, Peru, Jun 30 2018 (IPS)

At more than 3,300 m above sea level, in the department of Cuzco, women are beating infertile soil and frost to grow organic food and revive community work practices that date back to the days of the Inca empire in Peru such as the “ayni” and “minka”.

“We grow maize, beans and potatoes, that’s what we eat, and we forget about other vegetables, but now we’re going to be able to naturally grow tomatoes, lettuce, and peas,” María Magdalena Condori told IPS, visibly pleased with the results, while showing her solar greenhouse, built recently in several days of community work.

She lives in the Andes highlands village of Paropucjio, located at more than 3,300 m above sea level, in Cusipata, a small district of less than 5,000 inhabitants."We want to help improve the quality of life of rural women by strengthening their capacities in agriculture. They work the land, they sow and harvest, they take care of their families, they are the mainstay of food security in their homes and their rights are not recognized." -- Elena Villanueva

The local population subsists on small-scale farming and animal husbandry, which is mainly done by women, while most of the men find paid work in districts in the area or even in the faraway city of Cuzco, to complete the family income.

The geographical location of Paropucjio is a factor in the low fertility of the soils, in addition to the cold, with temperatures that drop below freezing. “Here, frost can destroy all our crops overnight and we end up with no food to eat,” says Celia Mamani, one of Condori’s neighbors.

A similar or even worse situation can be found in the other 11 villages that make up Cusipata, most of which are at a higher altitude and are more isolated than Paropucjio, which is near the main population centre in Cusipata and has the largest number of families, about 120.

Climate change has exacerbated the harsh conditions facing women and their families in these rural areas, especially those who are furthest away from the towns, because they have fewer skills training opportunities to face the new challenges and have traditionally been neglected by public policy-makers.

“In Paropucjio there are 14 of us women who are going to have our own greenhouse and drip irrigation module; so far we have built five. This makes us very happy, we are proud of our work because we will be able to make better use of our land,” said Rosa Ysabel Mamani the day that IPS spent visiting the community.

The solar greenhouses will enable each of the beneficiaries to grow organic vegetables for their families and to sell the surplus production in the markets of Cusipata and nearby districts.

Women farmers from Paropucjio, in the district of Cusipata, more than 3,300 metres above sea level, smile as they talk about the wooden structure for a solar greenhouse, which they jokingly refer to as a “skeleton”. The roof will be made of a special microfilm resistant to bad weather, intense ultraviolet radiation and extreme temperatures, and the greenhouses are built collectively, in the Andean region of Cuzco, Peru. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

With a broad smile, Mamani points to a 50-sq-m wooden structure that within the next few days will be covered with mesh on the sides and microfilm – a plastic resistant to extreme temperatures and hail – on the roof.

“We will all come with our husbands and children and we will finish building the greenhouse in ‘ayni’ (a Quechua word that means cooperation and solidarity), as our ancestors used to work,” she explains.

The ayni is one of the social forms of work of the Incas still preserved in Peru’s Andes highlands, where the community comes together to build homes, plant, harvest or perform other tasks. At the end of the task, in return, a hearty meal is shared.

The minga, another legacy of the Inca period, is similar but between communities, whose inhabitants go to help those of another community. In this case women from different villages and hamlets get together to build the greenhouses, especially the roofs, the hardest part of the job.

Training in production and rights

A total of 80 women from six rural highlands districts in Cuzco will benefit from the solar greenhouses and drip irrigation modules for their family organic gardens, as part of a project run by the non-governmental Peruvian Flora Tristán Women’s Centre with the support of the Spanish Basque Agency for Development Cooperation.

Women farmers from the community of Huasao, in the Andean highlands region of Cuzco, Peru, stand in front of one of the 50-sq-m solar tents, which has a 750-litre water tank for the drip irrigation module for their vegetables. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

“We want to help improve the quality of life of rural women by strengthening their capacities in agriculture. They work the land, they sow and harvest, they take care of their families, they are the mainstay of food security in their homes and their rights are not recognised,” Elena Villanueva, a sociologist with the centre’s rural development programme, told IPS.

She said the aim was comprehensive training for women farmers, so that they can use agro-ecological techniques for the sustainable use of soil, water and seeds. They will also learn to defend their rights as women, farmers and citizens, in their homes, community spaces and before local authorities.

The expert said the solar greenhouses open up new opportunities for women because they protect crops from adverse weather and from the high levels of ultraviolet radiation in the area, allowing the women to grow crops that could not survive out in the open.

“Now they will have year-round food that is not currently part of their diet, such as cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and lettuce, that will enrich the nutrition and diets in their families – crops they will be able to plant and harvest with greater security,” she said.

The women have also been trained in the preparation of natural fertilisers and pesticides. “Our soils don’t yield much, they squeeze the roots of the plants, so we have to prepare them very well so that they can receive the seeds and then provide good harvests,” Condori explains.

In the 50 square metres covered by her new greenhouse, the local residents have worked steadily digging the soil to remove the stones, turn the soil and form the seed beds for planting.

Women and men from the community of Paropucjio, in Peru’s Andes highlands region of Cuzco, share lunch after completing the community work of building one of 80 small greenhouses, where women farmers will be able to grow organic vegetables despite the extreme temperatures in the area. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

“To do that we have had to fertilise a lot using bocashi (fermented organic fertiliser) that we prepare in groups with the other women, working together in ayni. We brought guinea pig and chicken droppings and cattle manure, leaves, and ground eggshells,” she explains.

This active role in making decisions about the use of their productive resources has helped change the way their husbands see them and has brought a new appreciation for everything they do to support the household and their families.

Honorato Ninantay, from the community of Huasao, located more than 3,100 metres above sea level in the neighbouring district of Oropesa, confesses his surprise and admiration for the way his wife juggles all her responsibilities.

“It seems unbelievable that before, in all this time, I hadn’t noticed. Only when she has gone to the workshops and has been away from home for two days have I understood,” he says.

“I as a man have only one job, I work in construction. But my wife has aahh! (long exclamation). When she left I had to fetch the water, cook the meals, feed the animals, go to the farm and take care of my mother who is sick and lives with us. I couldn’t handle it all,” he adds.

His wife, Josefina Corihuamán, listens to her husband with a smile on her face, and confirms that he is now involved in household chores because he has understood that washing, cleaning and cooking are not just a “woman’s job.”

She also has a solar greenhouse and irrigation module and is confident that she will produce enough to feed her family and sell the surplus in the local market.

“What we will harvest will be healthy, organic, chemical-free food, and that is good for our families, for our children. I feel that I will finally make good use of my land,” she says.

The central square of Huaro, with a colonial church that is a national monument, in the middle of the typical Andes highlands landscape. This Peruvian rural municipality of 4,500 people feels alone in its efforts to reduce the high levels of poverty. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

By Mariela Jara
HUARO, Peru, Feb 22 2018 (IPS)

“The day will come when people do not have to go to the cities to overcome poverty,” says Elmer Pinares, mayor of an Andean highlands municipality in Cuzco, in southern Peru, where malnutrition and lack of support for subsistence farming are among the main problems.

“If I were president of Peru, I would reactivate the Andes highlands by supporting small-scale agriculture and training women and men in the face of climate change, so that communities can take advantage of their resources and families can have a good quality of life,” the mayor of Huaro, a town of 4,500 inhabitants located at 3,100 meters above sea level, told IPS.

Huaro is one of the 12 districts (municipalities) of the province of Quispicanchi, in turn one of the 13 that make up Cuzco, a department with high rates of inequality and poverty, despite being Peru’s epicentre of tourism and source of high-protein foods, such as quinoa, tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis) and amaranth (Amaranthus caudatus)."In our administration, we aim to combat chronic child malnutrition and we have focused our efforts on guaranteeing food security for families in a situation of extreme poverty, then we will sell outside if there is a surplus." -- Enrique Achahui

These problems translate into high rates of child malnutrition and anemia in the highlands areas, curtailing opportunities for the rural population from early childhood, said Pinares, who after finishing his three-year term in 2019 is determined to return to teaching at the local school.

At total of 38,533 girls and boys under the age of three are malnourished in the Andean communities of Cuzco, where the population is predominantly native Quechua, he said.

Peru, a country of 32 million people, has made progress in reducing child malnutrition in the last decade, but official figures show that in this region of 1.4 million people malnutrition remains high at 53.1 percent of children, almost 10 percentage points above the national average of 43.5 percent.

“This is the reality in the highland communities of the Peruvian Andes, which the national government ignores,” said Pinares, who during his term has promoted the development of productive projects for the benefit of families, with the support of a small team of local technicians.

And the situation in Huaro, IPS found during a tour of rural communities in the area, is repeated in other districts located over 3,000 meters above sea level, which forms part of the territory where rural poverty is concentrated in Peru.

According to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics and Information, from 2016, overall poverty in Peru stands at 20.7 percent of the population, but rural poverty climbs to 43.8 percent, and of that proportion, 13.2 percent live in extreme poverty.

For this group of Peruvians, food security is still a distant goal, as acknowledged by another government study from 2017.

Communities feel alone

It is in this context that the local authorities of the most neglected communities of Peru, who with limited resources try to boost development in their territories, feel like they have been left on their own by the central government.

Along with a small technical team, Huaro Mayor Elmer Pinares, from his office in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco, in southern Peru, promotes projects aimed at improving the living conditions of local families, and in particular at reducing child malnutrition, a sensitive subject for him, as a teacher. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

“In our administration, we aim to combat chronic child malnutrition and we have focused our efforts on guaranteeing food security for families in a situation of extreme poverty, then we will sell outside if there is a surplus,” Enrique Achahui, the municipal manager of the district of Andahuaylillas, told IPS.

In his town, at almost 3,200 m above sea level, another new and urgent problem is the lack of water, because the streams in the Andes are shrinking due to climate change.

“Here most families are engaged in small-scale agriculture, where they get their food, but without water there will be no food. Despite the serious nature of the situation, the central government has not put a priority on addressing this problem,” the official said.

A little higher up, at 3,553 m above sea level, the municipal authorities of the district of Quiquijana, also in the province of Quispicanchi, are committed to promoting economic development with productive projects carried out by peasant families.

“In highlands communities, child malnutrition exceeds 50 percent and may increase because crops are lost due to climate change. We are developing capacities for planting crops and harvesting water, creating organic bio-gardens and raising guinea pigs for food,” municipal official Efraín Lupo told IPS.

His colleague, Rosmary Challco, added that unexpected frost and hailstorms are destroying crops.

“Families lose money, work, and food, and this is a very serious problem for highlands communities. Unfortunately there are no initiatives from the central government to initiate change,” she said with dismay.

She also called attention to the need to promote public policies focused on Andean territories to reinforce local intervention and raise public awareness about changes in social patterns to improve the lives of communities.

“We need to eradicate the machismo that prevents girls and women in communities in highlands areas from getting an education and from living lives free of (gender) violence, so that they can have a profession, develop and provide for their families,” she explained.

For Janed Nina, education was the door that opened up opportunities for her to realise her dreams.

She had the support of her family to pursue university studies after finishing high school, and today, as an agronomist, she contributes to the growth of the family farm located in the community of Saclla in the district of Calca.

“We plant more than 40 kinds of vegetables, which enrich our diet. We sell the surplus to have an income that helps us develop the farm,” she told IPS.

After graduating as an agronomist, agroecological farmer Janed Nina returned to her community, Saclla, high in the Peruvian Andes, to apply her knowledge on the family farm and also share it with other local farmers. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

She, along with her two brothers who are also agricultural engineers, is dedicated to working on the family farm and sharing their achievements.

“Here we offer training in agroecology to women farmers, as well as internships for people interested in learning,” she said.

For Nina, the weakness of small-scale agriculture has to do with the lack of vision of the central government, which does not include it as a strategic area of production, and with the fact that instead of promoting productive training in the communities, it limits itself to providing social assistance.

“We need to work and take advantage of our resources,” she said.

In the district of Cusipata, at 3,100 m altitude, with a population of 4,700, the main concern of the authorities is to create conditions for the population to improve their food security and thus reduce the rates of anemia and malnutrition among local children.

“We seek to work with organised groups of women. Associations of flower growers, artisans and guinea pig breeders have been formed. But we need to maintain the technical assistance in order to make their projects sustainable,” said Vladimir Boza, economic development manager of the municipality.

From distant Lima, he told IPS, the government has little understanding of the reality in the highlands areas, hence the weak and ineffective policies.

“For example, they talk about helping farmers specialise in producing agroexport crops, and this is not possible in high altitude areas because monoculture is not feasible with climate change,” he said.

“On the contrary, what needs to be promoted is diversification,” he said, based on his experience.

Celestina of Porcón Alto, a rural region high in the Andes, whose family has lived on the same plot of land for generations. Credit: Andrea Vale/IPS

By Andrea Vale
PORCÓN, Peru, Oct 6 2017 (IPS)

Good healthcare can be hard to get – particularly when one lives on top of a mountain. The road to Porcón in the Cajamarca region of Peru, therefore, is as breathtaking as it is sobering. With every step further into its isolated natural beauty, a group of volunteers sent to deliver healthcare essentials are reminded how long the trek would be in an emergency.

After a bus has taken the volunteers as far as it can, to the rim of a sweeping valley dipping into the basin of a ring of mountains, they start their hike.“We have a lot of fear,” Celestina says. “The doctors are always telling us that they’re going to help us and heal us, but we can’t always get to them and they’re not able to get to us."

It’s not very long mile-wise, but they stumble over unforgiving drops in a rocky wind that leads them through tilted pastures resting on the sides of the mountains. The looming brown stillness is disrupted by their panting, at a loss of breath from the gasping altitude.

At the end lies a community of artisans who live in close proximity to one another in Porcón Alto, a rural region high in the Andes.

They’ve been waiting. Once the volunteers arrive, several women filter out into the pasture where they’ve set up shop and sit cross-legged around them, all accompanied by toddlers clutching at their long skirts and babies peeking out of the tops of the shawls slung over their backs to carry infants, or vegetables.

They have a flood of questions ready, about basic nutrition, exercise, disease prevention. They have a waiting list of ailments to look at – my child has this rash. My child can’t say his R’s. It hurts when I stand up from bed.

Immediately put to work, volunteers begin taking their blood pressure, weighing them, measuring their heart rates and their blood glucose levels. Under the shadow cast by one woman’s tall brimmed hat her skin is wrinkled in layers, leathery and toughened from years of work in the sun. She looks anywhere between 40 and 60, balancing a squirming toddler in her lap while she squints at the volunteer helping her with rapt attention and concern. But a glance at her chart reveals that she is only 22.

One woman sits in the center of the others, shucking corn with a baby tied to her back. Her eyes crinkle with smile lines and her elements-exposed skin is a mosaic of black freckles and brown creases. Her name is Celestina.

Porcón is home to her in a deep sense – her family has lived on this exact plot of land for generations.

“The house over there was taken down, but that’s where my grandmother and her mother lived,” she says in Spanish, gesturing out towards a rolling plot of land.

As to what life has been like, living high up here: “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes I get worried. My daughter is sick right now, so I’m sad right now,” Celestina says, touching her daughter’s face as the baby girl plays in her lap. Baby Analee, she says, was bit by an insect just this morning. Analee’s cheek is already massively swollen with a red welt.

Fearing for her daughter is a constant reality of existence for Celestina.

“When I’m sleeping I can forget, but otherwise there’s always that worry for my child,” she says. “She needs to go to school, she needs to work, and I’m always worried about her, to know that she’ll be okay.”

Despite how long her family has lived on this land, Celestina says without a hint of hesitation that she wishes Analee could grow up in an urban area, perhaps the city Cajamarca below.

“Of course I want to live out in the city, but we don’t have land. Where would we build a house? Here, being out in the country, we just cook, we clean, we try to bathe, and we wait. All we can do is wait for the proper transportation to get to Cajamarca to try to get the proper attention if someone is sick.”

She says that there are no home remedies that she or anyone in the community uses to try to treat illness. Their best defense is simply the best level of hygiene they can achieve, and oftentimes it isn’t enough.

According to the Pan American Health Organization, only 19.1% of the urban population in Peru make up the country’s total poverty – as compared to 54.2% of rural peoples. In regards to extreme poverty, the contrast is even starker – 2.5% of the urban population, and 23.3% of the rural.

Celestina is 38 years old. She has the health of a 60-year-old. Plagued with health struggles since childhood, she currently suffers from chronic eyesight and stomach trouble.

But she brushes this acknowledgement off and automatically returns her attention to her baby.

“My daughter is sick and I am worried,” she says. “Always, I am scared for her.”

Celestina may worry about emergency illness striking, but what her and the other community members don’t realize is that the real threat of living in such isolation is not one-time tragedies, but rather chronic health problems. Of the children screened in Porcón, one-fourth were underweight and one-fourth were either at risk of being overweight or actually overweight. Of the adults screened, 33% were obese and 42% were overweight.

Most of the people examined during the health screenings, both in Porcón and across Cajamarca, had hypertension and were overweight. An inordinate number had diabetes and were completely unaware of it, ignorant to what caused the disease. One woman’s blood glucose level was close to 230 – the volunteer who tested her was so shocked that she tested the level twice more, sure that that initial reading couldn’t be possible.

Uneducated on signs of cancer and prevention techniques, many have had parents and grandparents pass away from the disease and simply chalked it up to having ‘just died,’ without a known cause.

According to the World Health Organization, the current national Human Resources for Health Density in Peru – meaning doctors, nurses and midwives – is 17.8 per 10,000 population. That distribution, however, is extremely inequitable, with rural areas usually having an HRH density of below ten. Lima, for instance, has three times more physicians per population – 15.4 – than Huancavelica, one of the poorest cities in Peru and populated in majority by indigenous peoples. 89.1% of births in urban regions are assisted by a professional – while only 42.9% of births in rural areas are.

Consequently, it’s perhaps not surprising that child mortality rates in Peruvian rural areas are almost twice that of urban areas – 40% to 26%.  According to the Pan American Health Organization, 35.3% of adults in rural areas of Peru are overweight, and 16.5% are obese. Only 40% of them perform any “moderate physical activity” – all of the health screenings concluded with group exercise classes.

Without doctors nearby, without easy and reliable transportation to get to the closest doctors, and without health education, Celestina has to live in constant fear. There is fear for her neighbors and for herself – but above all, fear for her baby. There is fear that disease will strike, that accidents will happen, that unexplained illness will come. Because when it does, Celestina and the rest of the community are left alone on top of the Andes with only their best abilities as a defense – uneducated, unequipped and without adequate and reliable transportation.

“We have a lot of fear,” Celestina says, “The doctors are always telling us that they’re going to help us and heal us, but we can’t always get to them and they’re not able to get to us. They’re always promising that they’re going to help us, but it never happens because they’re so far.”

For now, all that Celestina and the rest of Porcón can do is wait.

“The only thing we can do is wait until we can go to the doctor,” she says, “To go to the doctor and then wait again. Sometimes there’s nobody.”

Terraces built by Atacameño Indians in the village of Caspana in Alto Loa, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. This ageold farming technique represents an adaptation to the climate, and ensures the right to food of these Andes highlands people. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
CASPANA, Chile, Oct 21 2015 (IPS)

Terrace farming as practiced from time immemorial by native peoples in the Andes mountains contributes to food security as a strategy of adaptation in an environment where the geography and other conditions make the production of nutritional foods a complex undertaking.

This ancient prehispanic technique, still practiced in vast areas of the Andes highlands, including Chile, “is very important from the point of view of adaptation to the climate and the ecosystem,” said Fabiola Aránguiz.

“By using terraces, water, which is increasingly scarce in the northern part of the country, is utilised in a more efficient manner,” Aránguiz, a junior professional officer on family farming with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS from the agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago, some 1,400 km south of the town of Caspana in Chile’s Atacama desert.

In this country’s Andes highands, terrace farming has mainly been practiced by the Atacameño and Quechua indigenous peoples, who have inhabited the Atacama desert in the north for around 9,000 years.

Principally living in oases, gorges and valleys of Alto Loa, in the region of Antofagasta, these peoples learned about terrace farming from the Inca, who taught them how to make the best use of scant water resources to grow food on the limited fertile land at such high altitudes.

The terraces are “like flowerbeds that have been made over the years, where the existing soil is removed and replaced by fertile soil brought in from elsewhere, in order to be able to grow food,” the Agriculture Ministry’s secretary in Antofagasta, Jaime Pinto, told IPS.

“This has made it possible for them to farm, because in these gorges where they terrace, microclimates are created that enable the cultivation of different crops,” Pinto, the highest level government representative in agriculture in the region, said from the regional capital, Antofagasta.

The official said that although water is scarce in this area, “it is of good quality, which makes it possible, in the case of the town of Caspana, to cite one example, to produce garlic or fruit like apricots or apples on a large scale.”

According to official figures, in the region of Antofagasta alone there are some 14 highlands communities who preserve the tradition of terrace farming, which contributes to local food security as well as the generation of income, improving the quality of life.

Communiities like Caspana, population 400, and the nearby Río Grande, with around 100 inhabitants, depend on agriculture, and thanks to terrace farming they not only feed their families but grow surplus crops for sale.

But people in other villages and towns in Alto Loa, like Toconce, with a population of about 100, are basically subsistence farmers, despite abundant terraces and fertile land. The reason for this is the heavy rural migration to cities, which has left the land without people to farm it, Pinto explained.

The town of Caspana, 3,300 metres above sea level, in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. Its 400 inhabitants depend on small-scale agriculture as they proudly declare on a rock at the entrance to the village, thanks to the use of the ancient tradition of terrace farming. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

“Ours is fertile land,” Liliana Terán, a 45-year-old mother of four and grandmother of four who belongs to the Atacameño indigenous community, told IPS. One of her income-generating activities is farming on the small terrace she inherited from her mother in Caspana.

“Whatever you plant here, grows,” she added proudly.

The name of her indigenous village, Caspana, means “children of the valley” in the Kunza tongue, which died out in the late 19th century. The village is located 3,300 metres above sea level in a low-lying part of the valley.

Caspana is “a village of farmers and shepherds” reads a sign carved into stone at the entrance to the village, which is inhabited by Atacameño or Kunza Indians, who today live in northwest Argentina and northern Chile.

Each family here has their terrace, which they carefully maintain and use for growing crops. The land is handed down from generation to generation.

Each village has a “juez del agua”, the official responsible for supplying or cutting off the supply of water, to ensure equitable distribution to the entire village.

“The water flows down through vertical waterways between the terraces, from the highest point of the river, and is distributed in a controlled mmaner,” said Aránguiz.

“With this system, better use is made of both irrigation and rainwater, and more water is retained, meaning more moisture in the soil, which helps ease things in the dry periods,” she added. “And the drainage of water is improved, to avoid erosion and protect the soil.”

All of these aspects, said the FAO representative, make terrace farming an efficient system for fighting the effects of climate change.

“Well-built and well-maintained terraces can improve the stability of the slopes, preventing mudslides during extreme rain events,” she said, stressing “the cultural importance of this ancestral technique, which strengthens the economic and social dynamics of family agriculture.”

Aránguiz pointed out that indigenous people in the Andes highlands have kept alive till today this tradition which bolsters food security. She specifically mentioned countries like Bolivia and Peru, noting that terrace farming is used in the latter on more than 500,000 hectares of land.

Luisa Terán, 43, who has an adopted daughter and is Liliana’s cousin, works the land on her mother’s terrace.

When IPS was in the village the day before the traditional ceremony when the local farmers come together to clean the waterways that irrígate the terraces, Luisa was hard at work making empanadas or stuffed pastries for the celebration.

“This ceremony is very important for us,” as it marks the preparation of the land for the next harvest, she said.

Pinto underlined that “maintaining these cultivation systems is a responsibility that we have, as government.”

He said that through the government’s Institute of Agricultural Development, the aim is to implement a programme for the recovery and maintenance of terraces that were damaged in the most recent heavy storms in northern Chile.

In addition, projects are being designed “to help young people see agricultural development as an economic alternative.”

This goes hand in hand with the fight against inequality, Pinto said.

“We are working on creating the conditions for food autonomy and it is this kind of cultivation that can generate contributions to agricultural production to feed the region,” he added.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The El Tatio geyser field in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. Geothermal energy comes from the earth’s internal heat, and the steam is delivered to a turbine, which powers a generator. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
OLLAGÜE, Chile, Aug 26 2015 (IPS)

Chile, a land of volcanoes and geysers, has started building South America’s first geothermal plant, which would open a door to this kind of renewable energy in this country that depends largely on fossil fuels.

The Cerro Pabellón geothermal project is “immensely important for the Chilean state, which started geothermal exploration and drilling over 40 years ago,” but no initiative had taken concrete shape until now, Marcelo Tokman, general manager of the state oil company, ENAP, told IPS.

Located in the rural municipality of Ollagüe, 1,380 km north of Santiago, in the Andes highlands in the region of Antofagasta, Cerro Pabellón “will not only be the first geothermal plant in Chile and South America, but will also be the first in the world to be built at 4,500 metres above sea level,” Tokman added.

The Italian company Enel Green Power has a 51 percent stake in the project and ENAP owns 49 percent. The plant consists of two units of 24 MW each for a total gross installed capacity of 48 MW in the first phase, but with the advantage of being able to generate electricity around-the-clock.

That makes it equivalent, in terms of annual generating capacity, to a 200-MW solar or wind power plant.

The first stage would enter into operation in the first quarter of 2017 and a year later another 24 MW would be added. But the plant could be generating around 100 MW in the medium term, on 136 hectares of land.

Tokman said that once the plant is fully operational, it will be able to produce some 340 megatwatt-hours (MWh) a year that would go into the national power grid and would meet the consumption needs of 154,000 households in this country of 17.6 million people.

He also said it would avoid over 155,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, by reducing fossil fuel consumption.

The Atacama desert, the most arid in the world, has a large part of Chile’s geothermal potential and is the location of the first South American plant to tap into this source of energy. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

Sixty million dollars were invested in the exploratory phase, and an estimated 320 million dollars more will go into the plant and the construction of a 73-km power line.

Geothermal energy is obtained by tapping underground reservoirs of heat, generally near volcanoes, geysers or other hotspots on the surface of the earth. If well-managed, the geothermal reservoirs can produce clean energy indefinitely. The steam generated is delivered to a turbine, which powers a generator.

The Philippines is home to three of the world’s 10 biggest geothermal plants, followed by the United States and Indonesia, with two each, and Italy, Mexico and Iceland, with one each.

Studies indicate that Chile is one of the countries with the greatest geothermal potential in Latin America.

This long, narrow country, which forms part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, stretches 4,270 km along the Andes mountains, the earth’s largest volcanic chain.

Environmentalists say geothermal energy has a relatively low impact, as long as questions of scale and location are respected.

“Geothermal is an unconventional renewable energy source to the extent that it is carried out in accordance with territorial and cultural needs. The energy source in and of itself does not guarantee social and environmental sustainability,” land surveyor Lucio Cuenca, director of the Santiago-based Latin American Observatory on Environmental Conflicts, told IPS.

Respecting these parameters, geothermal energy “is a very good alternative for this country,” he said.

In the case of the Cerro Pabellón plant, the surrounding communities form part of the Alto El Loa nature reserve, made up of the villages and communities of Caspana, Ayquina, Turi, Chiu Chiu, Cupo, Valle de Lasana, Taira and Ollagüe, which have a combined total population of just over 1,000, most of them Atacameño and Quechua indigenous people.

The Alto El Loa Indigenous Peoples Council got ENAP and ENEL to sign a series of agreements for the implementation of social development projects in the local communities in compensation for the impact of the geothermal project, and especially the power line.

For the inhabitants of Alto El Loa, scattered in remote areas in the Atacama desert, if the project is sustainable and benefits their communities, it will be a positive thing. But they say they are concerned that their way of life may not be respected.

“I would like to see more help, and if this is a good thing, then it’s welcome,” Luisa Terán, a member of the Atacameño indigenous group from the village of Caspana, told IPS. “Sometimes we feel a bit neglected and isolated.

“But it has to come with respect for our traditions, and it is our elders who are demanding that most strongly,” she added.

Others, however, reject the project as “anti-natural” and “violent” towards the local habitat.

“If you hurt the earth, she will in one way or another get back at you,” tourist guide Víctor Arque, of San Pedro de Atacama, a highlands village 290 km from Ollagüe, told IPS. “It can’t be possible to drill kilometres below ground without something happening.”

A photo taken at dawn in the middle of the steam from the El Tatio geysers in northern Chile, where this clean, unlimited source of energy will begin to be harnessed with the construction of the Cerro Pabellón geothermal plant in the rural municipality of Ollagüe. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

The El Tatio precedent

Chile was a pioneer in research on geothermal potential. The first exploration was carried out in 1907 in El Tatio, a geyser field located some 200 km from Cerro Pabellón and 4,300 metres above sea level. This country was the third to explore geothermal energy, after the United States and Russia.

Two wells were drilled in that area in 1931, and in the late 1960s the government carried out more systematic exploration, which was later abandoned.

In 2008, the Geotérmica del Norte company, which belonged to the Italian consortium ENEL, began exploration in Quebrada del Zoquete, a few km from El Tatio, using the equipment already installed in the geyser field.

In September 2009, a 60-metre high column of steam shot up from one of the wells where the company was extracting and reinjecting geothermal fluids. The anomaly, caused by a failed valve, lasted more than three weeks and led to the government’s cancellation of the permit for further operations.

Tokman, energy minister at the time, remembered the incident. “Fortunately all of the safeguards had been taken to demand different instruments of measurement for the project, to ensure that the reservoir was deeper and distinct from the reservoir in the El Tatio geyser field,” he said.

Cuenca said the mistake was “having restarted a geothermal programme in Chile doing everything that shouldn’t be done: that is, interfering in a place where there are indigenous communities, an area with a high tourist and economic value, simply to take advantage of the infrastructure that was already installed there.”

Experts warn that geothermal power is not a panacea for Chile’s energy deficit, because if there is one thing this country has learned, it is that a diversified energy mix is essential.

But if Chile’s potential is confirmed, Cerro Pabellón could open the door to geothermal development not only in this country but in South America.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Some of the “potato guardians” of the five Quechua communities helping to safeguard native varieties in a 9,200-hectare “potato park” in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, in the Peruvian highlands department of Cuzco. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
PISAC, Peru , Dec 29 2014 (IPS)

In this town in Peru’s highlands over 3,000 metres above sea level, in the mountains surrounding the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the Quechua Indians who have lived here since time immemorial are worried about threats to their potato crops from alterations in rainfall patterns and temperatures.

“The families’ food security is definitely at risk,” agricultural technician Lino Loayza told IPS. “The rainy season started in September, and the fields should be green, but it has only rained two or three days, and we’re really worried about the effects of the heat.”

If the drought stretches on, as expected, “we won’t have a good harvest next year,” said Loayza, who is head of the Parque de la Papa or Potato Park, a biocultural conservation unit created to safeguard native crops in the rural municipality of Pisac in the southeastern department or region of Cuzco.“We are all joined together by potatoes, in our style of life, gastronomy, culture and spirituality. Potatoes are sacred, we have to know how to treat them, they are important for our livelihoods and they connect us to life." -- Lino Mamani

In the Parque de la Papa, which is at an altitude of up to 4,500 metres and covers 9,200 hectares, 6,000 indigenous villagers from five communities – Amaru, Chawaytire, Pampallaqta, Paru Paru and Sacaca – are preserving potatoes and biodiversity, along with their spiritual rites and traditional farming techniques.

The Parque de la Papa, a mosaic of fields that hold the greatest diversity of potatoes in the world, 1,460 varieties, was created in 2002 with the support of the Asociación Andes.

This protected area in the Sacred Valley of the Incas is surrounded by lofty peaks known as ‘Apus’ or divine guardians of life, which until recently were snow-capped year-round.

“People are finally waking up to the problem of climate change. They’re starting to think about the future of life, the future of the family. What will the weather be like? Will we have food?” 50-year-old community leader Lino Mamani, one of the ‘papa arariwa’ – potato guardians, in Quechua – told IPS.

He said that whoever is sceptical about climate change can come to the Peruvian Andes to see that it’s real. “Pachamama [mother earth, in Quechua] is nervous about what we are doing to her. All of the crops are moving up the mountains, to higher and higher ground, and they will do so until it’s too high to grow,” he said.

As temperatures rise, plant pests and diseases are increasing, such as the Andean potato weevil or potato late blight (Phytophthora infestans).

To prevent crop damage, over the last 30 years farmers have increased the altitude at which they plant potatoes by more than 1,000 metres, said Mamani. That information was confirmed by the Asociación Andes and by researchers at the International Potato Centre (CIP), based in Lima.

But the most dramatic effects for Cuzco’s Quechua peasant farmers have been seen in the last 15 years.

The lower-lying part of the “potato park” in the rural municipality of Pisac in the department of Cuzco, in Peru, where five Quechua communities are preserving the ageold crop. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

“Nature used to let us know when was the best time for each step, in farming. But now, Pachamama is confused, and we are losing our reference points among the animals and the plants, which don’t have a flowering season anymore,” Mamani lamented.

The soil is drier and the potato-growing season has already shrunk from five or six months to four.

“We are all joined together by potatoes, in our style of life, gastronomy, culture and spirituality. Potatoes are sacred, we have to know how to treat them, they are important for our livelihoods and they connect us to life,” the ‘papa arariwa’ said.

Mamani lives in the village of Pampallaqta. On his farm, which is less than one hectare in size, he grows 280 varieties of potato, most of which grow high up on the mountain.

But not only the potatoes are suffering the impact of climate change. Other traditional crops grown by the Quechua, such as beans, barley, quinoa and maize are also being grown at higher and higher altitudes because of the rising temperatures. “We need support in order to adapt our crops,” Mamani said.

Innovation versus extinction

The curator of the CIP germplasm bank, Rene Gómez, predicts that at this rate of prolonged drought and high temperatures for much of the year, followed by severe frost and plunging temperatures that freeze up the fields, potatoes are “absolutely at risk” in Peru’s highlands.

“I estimate that in 40 years there will be nowhere left to plant potatoes [in Peru’s highlands],” Gómez told IPS. He added that although it isn’t possible to halt climate change, alternatives can be developed in order to continue growing this crop, which has been planted in the Andes for thousands of years.

But he said that it will no longer be profitable to plant native varieties of potato 3,800 metres above sea level – the altitude of the lower-lying part of the Parque de la Papa.

“There are solutions – we have to use genes,” the scientific researcher said. “We have identified at least 11 drought- and frost-resistant cultivars.”

“We are also carrying out an experiment to interpret how the climate is changing, how potatoes are behaving at an altitude of 4,450 metres, and how they survive 200 mm of rainfall a year,” he said. Above that altitude, the highlands are inhospitable rocky ground.

Native potato varieties survive temperatures ranging from 2.8 to 40 degrees Celsius. But extreme temperature swings hurt the nutrients of the potato crop. In order to preserve their properties, potatoes need temperatures to remain within the range of four to 12 degrees.

An alliance combining scientific innovation with traditional Quechua know-how is taking shape to preserve Andean potato varieties. It includes the Asociación Andes, CIP and the Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) of the CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres.

While the search is on for crop varieties that can be grown on arid, high-altitude land, native farmers are receiving assistance in the Parque de la Papa to adapt their crops.

For their part, local families continue to use traditional techniques for storing and drying their crops. For example, two bitter-tasting varieties of potato – moraya and chuño – that can withstand harsh weather conditions are freeze-dried using traditional techniques employed since the Inca era, and can be stored up to 10 years.

Indigenous villagers complain that many local men have to leave home to look for work in the cities, leaving all of the household work, weaving and farmwork to the women.

“Our worry now is whether we will have food in the future,” Elisban Tacuri, a villager, told IPS.

Ancelma Apaza, a local Quechua woman, told IPS it is more and more difficult to estimate how much food needs to be stored to provide for the family throughout the year. “We women participate in food production and conservation, but now it’s hard for us to know how much food to store, because we don’t know if the harvest is going to be good,” she said.

She added that in the Parque de la Papa they are struggling to maintain the culinary traditions inherited from their ancestors, now that they complete their diets with industrially produced food.

To preserve their sacred crop, the Quechua villagers involved in the park opened a community storeroom in 2011 for potatoes and seeds, which has a capacity of 8,000 kg. It is called “Papa Takena Wasi” – in Quechua “takena” means keep and “wasi” means home.

“We keep the potatoes that have cultural value and this storeroom makes it possible for us to share seeds with communities that need them,” said Mariano Apukusi, another “potato guardian”.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Valerie Dee

Pristimantis orcesi, a species of frog found only in the páramos of Ecuador. Credit: Courtesy of the Private Technical University of Loja

By Leisa Sánchez
QUITO, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

The “páramos” or high plateaus of Ecuador, a crucial source of water, are showing signs of extreme fragility and a troubling loss of capacity to conserve this vital resource and sustain the survival of numerous species found nowhere else on earth.

The páramo is a high mountain ecosystem situated between 3,200 and 4,200 metres above sea level, and one of the most vulnerable in Ecuador. The threats that it faces are the result of climate change, deforestation and changes in land use.

The jambato toad (Atelopus ignescens) has already disappeared from the páramos, and there are fears for the survival of various species of mammals.

These high plains grasslands function like a sponge, absorbing and storing large volumes of freshwater which are then released continuously and gradually, feeding river systems and preventing abrupt variations in their flow.

But the páramo ecosystem has a limited capacity for recovering its original structure and biodiversity once these are altered, warned the founder of the non-profit scientific organisation EcoCiencia, Patricio Mena.

“It is intrinsically very fragile, which means that any disturbance, and even rains and winds, cause significant effects in the short, medium and long term. This is why it must be treated with great care,” Mena told Tierramérica.

The páramos are disappearing and vital water resources are being absorbed by the highly permeable volcanic soils beneath them: this was the warning sounded at the 7th Ibero-American Seminar on Science Journalism, held May 16-17 in the southern Ecuadorian city of Loja.

One particularly delicate issue is that of oil exploration and drilling in the páramos, observed Spanish seminar participant Seber Urgarte, a professor from the communications department at Abat Oliba CEU University and currently a guest researcher at the Private Technical University of Loja (UTPL).

This is why it is crucial to “preserve these ecosystems in light of their water and energy resources and biodiversity, above and beyond economic and political interests,” he told Tierramérica.

Mena stressed that the páramos supply water to indigenous communities and large cities alike. “Quito depends almost 100 percent on the water produced and stored in the surrounding páramos,” he said.

A study conducted as part of the Andean Páramo Project (PPA) found that these high plateau ecosystems are found in 18 of Ecuador’s 24 provinces. The most important are those of Napo, in north-central Ecuador, and Azuay and Morona-Santiago, in the south.

The PPA, which concluded in 2012, was a joint initiative of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Environment Programme. It was implemented in Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, with project activities emphasising research and local community participation. EcoCiencia was the Ecuadorian counterpart.

The study, “Distribución espacial, sistemas ecológicos y caracterización florística de los páramos en el Ecuador” (Spatial distribution, ecological systems and plant species of the páramos of Ecuador), found that these ecosystems cover 1.33 million hectares in the country, roughly five percent of its total area.

Close to 40 percent of Ecuador’s páramos are protected. The largest protected area is in Sangay National Park, which straddles the provinces of Morona-Santiago, Tungurahua, Chimborazo and Cañar, and accounts for 261,062 hectares. Of the remaining 60 percent, 30 percent have been altered by human intervention, and 30 percent are degraded, the study says.

But Mena, who formed part of the PPA team, stressed that “it is difficult to specify a percentage” or calculate an exact number of hectares that are degraded. Instead, it should be recognised that “all of the páramo is affected, because climate change affects the entire ecosystem.”

In general terms, the páramos of the eastern mountain range, which are moister and whose original biodiversity has remained intact, have a greater capacity to respond to environmental alterations, while the western páramos have suffered more serious impacts.

This is why Mena prefers to speak in terms of “a mosaic that ranges from perfectly well-preserved páramos to ecosystems in a state of profound degeneration that has practically transformed them into highly fragile deserts, like the dry páramos of (the central province of) Chimborazo.”

The páramos of Ecuador are characterised by a high degree of endemic flora and fauna. They are home to five species of reptiles, 24 of amphibians, and 88 of birds, of which 24 are found nowhere else.

According to the National Statistics and Census Institute, there are 565,858 hectares of arable land in Ecuador’s páramos, representing 4.85 percent of the country’s 11.6 million hectares of farmland.

In the meantime, “the area of land in the páramos under concession for mining activities decreased ostensibly, from 40.46 percent in 2008 to 12.53 percent in 2009,” engineer Fausto López from the department of natural sciences at UTPL told Tierramérica.

Mining concessions are concentrated in the south, in the provinces of Azuay, Loja and Zamora Chinchipe.

López believes that “the environmental cost is high, due to the threat to the habitat of numerous species of flora and fauna.” The most vulnerable are the mountain tapir, spectacled bear and culpeo or Andean fox, as well as the various species of amphibians.

“Given that these species need large areas for their survival, the establishment of corridors or networks of protected areas is one of the best strategies for their conservation,” he added.

But biologist Carlos Iván Espinosa explained that “one of the problems in the tropics is the lack of historical information on species and even on climate behaviour.”

“There are many species that have still not been described and that could be disappearing due to the effects of climate change,” argued Espinosa, also a researcher at UTPL.

The biggest challenge, stressed Mena, is to raise awareness of the fact that “the páramos are a part of our daily lives in an indirect by fundamental way: through the supply of water.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Excerpt:

Kawerau geothermal centre in New Zealand. Credit: Courtesy of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, May 8 2013 (IPS)

Chile is one of the countries with the greatest potential for geothermal energy development in Latin America, but a lack of incentives for investment in the sector has kept it from moving past the exploratory phase. A strategic partnership with New Zealand aims to change that situation.

Geothermal energy is the heat energy from deep inside the Earth, which is brought to the near surface by thermal conduction and in some areas rises to the surface in natural streams of hot water or steam. This steam can be harnessed to power a turbine and generate electricity.

This long, narrow South American country stretches 4,270 kilometres along the slopes of the Andes Mountains, the world’s longest volcanic chain, according to the Andean Geothermal Centre of Excellence at the University of Chile.

Ten percent of all of the world’s volcanoes are found in Chile, “which represents significant potential in geological terms,” Gonzalo Salgado of the Chilean Geothermal Energy Association (ACHEGEO) told Tierramérica.

Chile forms part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes and earthquake epicentres that in the Americas also encompasses Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Central America, Mexico and parts of Argentina, Bolivia, the United States and Canada. This belt contains numerous virgin territories for thermal energy exploration, said Salgado.

Geothermal energy offers a means of achieving greater energy self-sufficiency in Chile, which currently depends on imports for 70 percent of its energy needs.

“The solutions (for energy dependency) are numerous: we need to talk about energy efficiency and many other things, but obviously, geothermal power is one of the inputs that could help to solve this problem,” Salgado added.

According to a report from the Renewable Energies Centre of the Ministry of Energy, in 2012 non-conventional renewable energy sources represented five percent of the country’s total installed capacity for electricity production.

By comparison, renewable energy sources accounted for 77 percent of the electrical power supply in New Zealand in 2011.

The Chilean government currently aims to reach a 10 percent renewable energy share by 2024, although a bill is currently under discussion in Congress that would raise this target to 15 or 20 percent.

Chile was a pioneer in studying its geothermal potential. The first exploration was conducted in 1907 in El Tatio, a geyser field in the north of the country, and two wells were drilled in the area in 1931.

In the late 1960s, with the support of international financing, the government embarked on more systematic exploration in El Tatio, but these activities were eventually suspended.

In 2008, the Geotérmica del Norte consortium launched exploration activities in the Zoquete ravine, a few kilometres from El Tatio.

In September of the following year, a 60-metre plume of steam erupted from one of the wells drilled by the consortium to extract and re-inject geothermal fluids in order to evaluate the area’s potential for energy generation. This anomaly, which continued for more than three weeks, led the government to revoke the permit for these operations.

Despite the alarm that this incident caused among the public, which had begun to show interest in geothermal energy, Salgado maintains that it “did not affect the development” of this energy source in Chile.

Luis Mariano Rendón, director of Acción Ecológica, an environmental organisation, told Tierramérica that while all power generation has harmful effects, “geothermal energy is a relatively low-impact source of power generation” that Chile should pursue. The most pertinent factor would be the availability of water, which could limit its use in arid regions of the country, he noted.

Studies by the University of Chile estimate that the country could generate 16,000 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power, while the installed capacity for electricity production is 16,970 MW and the maximum demand is around 9,000 MW, according to official figures from February 2012.

A total of 76 concessions have been granted for geothermal exploration throughout the country, while another 42 are currently being processed and 24 are under study. However, as of now, not a single megawatt of power is produced from this source in Chile.

This situation spurred ACHEGEO to organise its 2nd International Congress on Geothermal Energy, held Apr. 11 and 12. The subjects discussed included legislation, the electricity market, environmental issues, and the need for risk insurance for geothermal drilling failure in Chile.

“What is needed is deep exploration drilling,” for which this type of insurance is crucial, as it would serve as a “concrete and tangible” incentive for the investment required, said Salgado.

To boost its geothermal development, Chile announced a strategic partnership with New Zealand, where 15 percent of electricity is produced from this source.

The Wairakei power station, built in 1957 in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island, was the world’s first wet steam power station and is still in operation today.

“In the last seven years, seven projects have been developed in New Zealand that add up to 550 MW. Thanks to these projects, all of them successful, we have been able to accumulate a good deal of knowledge and experience,” said Bernard Hill, the president of Geothermal New Zealand, an international geothermal consulting and promotion agency.

According to Hill, Chile is the country with the second greatest geothermal potential after Indonesia.

“The international geothermal industry is small, so the people involved know each other. Chile is seen as an important place for geothermal energy and this is reflected in the number of companies that are studying the possibility of investing here,” said Andrea Blair, the geothermal business development manager at GNS Science, another New Zealand-based consultancy firm in the sector.

Companies in New Zealand are seeking the development of mutual support, which would include the transfer of technological know-how with Chile, Blair told Tierramérica.

“Nobody knows Chile better than the Chileans themselves, and we know quite a lot about geothermal development, and so by working together we can ensure that our projects are successful,” she said.

In addition to its scientific and technological expertise, New Zealand can also offer its own experience in relations with indigenous communities when it comes to planning a project.

“There has to be a genuine commitment to the communities and to trying to understand the other side’s point of view, to know what they need, what they want, by maintaining a transparent discussion at all times,” said Blair.

“In New Zealand, the Maoris are part of the project and often they share in the profits as well,” she added.

The scenario she describes contrasts sharply with the situation in Chile, where numerous plans have been halted by the courts due to the opposition of indigenous communities who demand their right to prior consultation, in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization.

In New Zealand, on the other hand, “before developing a project, the company has to go and speak with the owners of the land, who are almost always indigenous, and if they do not agree, the project doesn’t go forward,” said Blair.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Excerpt:

A view of the Peruvian Amazon. Credit: Jake G/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By Milagros Salazar
LIMA, Jan 17 2013 (IPS)

Peru’s economic growth is largely dependent on its wealth of natural resources, which provide over 50 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 80 percent of exports. In view of this fact, the government is developing a project for the valuation and protection of this natural bounty.

“There is a natural infrastructure tied to the physical infrastructure, which the state must protect,” Fernando León, an economic incentives advisor to the Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon (ICAA), told IPS.

By way of example, he noted that “if you only worry about the pipes and other infrastructure for a drinking water treatment project, and not about the river basins that provide the water that will go through the pipes, then what will you treat for the population to drink in the future?”

Until late 2011, León headed up the Ministry of Environment’s Department for the Assessment, Valuation and Financing of Natural Resources, where he advocated the promotion of projects for the protection of these resources under the National System of Public Investments (SNIP).

His successor, Roger Loyola, who has continued with these efforts, announced that by the end of the year, a so-called “Green SNIP” will begin to operate.

Loyola and his team have been working in coordination with the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (MEF), which oversees SNIP, to draw up the guidelines, conceptual framework and terms and conditions for the environmental projects envisioned.

This process has posed a challenge for the financial specialists, because they have had to demonstrate that these initiatives will be economically profitable for the country, for example, by demonstrating the economic benefits of protecting an endangered species, explained Loyola.

During this stage, projects are being studied in the areas of biodiversity, climate change, land management and zoning, and protected natural areas, all of which fall under the remit of the Ministry of Environment (MINAM).

Sources at the MEF investment policy office told IPS that “the first step being undertaken is to assess which of all these projects qualify as public investments.”

Once a conceptual consensus has been reached within MINAM to serve as a reference for other sectors and the environmental and economic considerations have been reconciled, they will move on to developing the guidelines and methodology for the design and approval of individual projects.

Biologist Sandro Chávez, national coordinator of the environmental NGO Foro Ecológico and former head of the National Protected Natural Areas Service, believes the Green SNIP initiative to be a generally positive step.

However, speaking with IPS, Chávez warned of the danger that the government will make the mistake of taking environmental issues into account only with regard to investments in conservation projects, “when the environmental component should be mainstreamed in all of the projects presented by all sectors of the state to ensure that they are sustainable.”

León, for his part, stressed that the specific projects promoted by MINAM should be seen as a first stage, since he knows first-hand from his experience promoting the development of a Green SNIP as a public official that it will not be easy to convince the Ministry of the Economy to take this step.

But despite this resistance, he noted, a number of “green” projects are already being undertaken by the MEF.

Last September, at a regional workshop on financing for biodiversity public policies and conservation in the Andean Amazon, Mónica Muñoz Nájar from the MEF investment policy office announced that 15 environmental projects were being carried out under the SNIP.

These include a project undertaken by the government of the northern region of San Martín for the recovery of ecosystem services that provide water for the population.

Loyola reported that there are high expectations among regional governments planning to submit environmental projects for financing under the Green SNIP. León added that initiatives should be prioritised as soon as the new system is up and running, “because what we consume in the cities is connected to rural areas, to what is in the interior of the country.”

The experts believe that reports should be prepared on an ongoing basis to demonstrate the benefits provided by environmental resources and the losses incurred when the environment is mistreated, in order to dispel the myth that nature’s resources are freely available and infinite.

In an analysis of the environmental situation in Peru in 2007, the World Bank concluded that the environmental damages inflicted on this country have an economic cost of 3.9 percent of GDP and primarily affect the poorest sectors of the population.

The World Bank report estimated that “the impact of environmental degradation on the poor in comparison with the non-poor is 20 percent greater in terms of impact per 1,000 people and 4.5 times greater in terms of impact per unit of income.”

An inter-sectoral committee comprising 28 institutions and headed up by the Statistics and Information Institute (INEI) was launched in Peru last August to establish a system of “green accounting” that contemplates environmental degradation, water and forests, with technical assistance from MINAM.

The goal is to “incorporate environmental variables into national accounting practices,” said Araceli Urriola, an environmental accounting specialist at the Department for the Assessment, Valuation and Financing of Natural Resources. “In other words, the supply and demand (in environmental terms) of all economic activities,” she told IPS.

Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia have made significant progress in this area, noted Urriola. In Peru, however, this process of valuing environmental benefits and losses and establishing a green GDP is just beginning. The members of the inter-sectoral committee are expected to meet before the end of this month to agree on a work plan, the INEI told IPS.

“Environmental impacts are cumulative and are not always felt immediately. Because of this, some governments have not placed any importance on conservation and preservation. That is why, through the valuation of environmental damage, we hope to highlight the importance of conservation, because otherwise, we will pay for it tomorrow,” stressed Loyola.

(END)