| Peru Offers Water-Wars Preview—and Microclimate Solutions |
| Thursday, 31 March 2011 | Marita Prandoni | Commentary |
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Over the past several months, Peruvian officials have suspended train service to the ancient Inca citadel Machu Picchu due to ongoing water protests that have resulted in many injuries and several deaths. The protesters are trade unions, university students and peasants, and they are fighting against an irrigation project that would leave Cusco’s provincial town of Espinar without water. With Andean glaciers melting and the desertification of populous coastal communities, Peru is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Allegedly without consulting the town of Espinar, the state investment agency awarded a concession to a private consortium called Angostura-Siguas. Their project proposes a dam and irrigation system that would feed 95,000 acres of agricultural land in Arequipa, as part of the Peruvian government’s plan to increase agricultural development and move away from mining. Catholic clerics have stepped in to try to negotiate between the protestors and government officials, but the conflict continues. Change Is in the Air In the impoverished Bellavista shantytown on the outskirts of Lima, Peruvians are trying to grow a forest—on sand dunes shrouded by dense fog. Where there is no running water and rainfall of only 1.5 inches annually, residents typically pay six times the norm for delivered water to cover washing and cooking needs. So the neighborhood began making the most of a thermal inversion that blankets the area six months out of the year. They mounted vertical nets to capture the sea mist. Droplets form on the mesh and fall into channels, flowing into pipes that lead to concrete reservoirs. Four of these 8m x 4m fog nets can amass up to 500 liters in a 24-hour period, supplying water not just for household needs, but also saplings, fruit trees and vegetables. German researchers Anne Lummerich and Kai Tiedemann introduced the idea three years ago. They planted 700 native Tara trees. As the trees mature, their leaves replace the function of the nets, catching the moisture and transferring it to the soil. Bellavista residents are restoring the environment that existed before the arrival of Europeans, who chopped down the trees and used them for housing. Besides controlling erosion, the trees bear a fruit that can be sold to help fund more fog nets for the neighborhood. The fruit contains desirable tannins, used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products and for treating leather. And the trees have generated other benefits: cleaner air, greener neighborhoods and a community united by the hope that arises from working with the environment, not against it. Calling Back the Glaciers Southeast of Lima and nearly 16,000 feet higher, the theory of Peruvian inventor Eduardo Gold is being put into action. Villagers from Licapa, near Ayacucho, just below the Chalon Sombrero Peak, are attempting to bring back their beloved glacier by painting its denuded boulder field white. They are using a mixture of three environmentally friendly ingredients—lime, industrial egg white and water—which has been employed since colonial days as a whitewash. The idea is to bounce the sunlight back into space, thereby chilling the surface and creating a cooler microclimate. (The US energy secretary, Steven Chu, has suggested a similar plan to lower greenhouse-gas emissions in North America—making rooftops white and driving white cars). They are working to cover an area of roughly 170 acres. One quarter of Peru’s glaciers have melted since the 1970s. If the pilot project proves successful, Mr. Gold hopes to expand it to other threatened glaciers on a larger scale. “I’d rather try and fail to find a solution than start working out how we are going to survive without the glaciers, as if the situation were irreversible,” he says. Meanwhile, US policymakers are spinning their wheels, arguing whether or not climate change is really human-caused. We’d better tune in to our own microclimates, rather than wait around for action from Washington. As Peru is demonstrating, it’s not the government that is providing solutions, but its thoughtful citizens. Additional resources: Updated 3/31/11; originally posted 11/15/10.
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If you’re not hauling water, the luxury of it probably hasn’t crossed your mind. As we savor easy access to this basic need, distant water conflicts can help us prepare for when—not if—water scarcity begins to affect our supply. With rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry, fresh water supplies for our ever-expanding, thirsty human mob are dwindling fast worldwide, and are bound to decline in the global north, too. 
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