Saving and restoring wetlandsis helping communities to manage scarce water
resources in the face of climate change
Wetlands usually abound in water, but not in the high Andes. Climate change is intensifying droughts as well as floods that threaten the way of life of Andean communities and the unique wildlife of high-altitude ecosystems.
“Our problem is the lack of water,” says Ofelia Fidela Casimiro, a farmer from El Moreno, a village at more than 3,600 meters above level sea in Jujuy Province, Argentina. “When there is no water, everything dries up.”
Casimiro and other community members are working to improve the management of the precious water that enables them to graze llamas and other livestock in local wetlands and grasslands, and to grow crops to feed their families or sell on local markets.
With help from local government, non-government organizations and other institutions such as the National Parks Administration, communities are using cages with stones and sacks filled with mud to construct small weirs in rivers and streams. The weirs slow the rivers, allowing sediment to accumulate. This raises the water table to within reach of the roots of surrounding vegetation, restoring the wetlands and making them more resilient to lengthening periods of dry weather.
“This is working well for me, because the grass is growing much better,” says Casimiro. “Before, everything was dry and white. Now it is all wet.”
The weirs are among measures implemented under a programme called “Saving High Andean Wetlands for Nature and People” by Wetlands International and local partners, with support of DOB ecology. The programme aims to implement more sustainable practices in five threatened Andean wetlands in Argentina and Peru for more resilient communities in the face of climate change and other threats.
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The programme also works with pastoralists to determine how many animals an area of wetland or grassland can support without degrading it. At meetings and workshops, shepherds and experts share knowledge and decide how to make grazing practices more sustainable, for instance by rotating livestock or adjusting their numbers.
“We have learned that closing off part of the land actually results in more grazing,” Casimiro says.
The area is home to about 200 families of the indigenous Kolla communities, who traditionally graze their livestock in the wetlands.
About 150 kilometres to the north of El Moreno, similar measures are helping to restore meadows and rivers within the Pozuelos Natural Monument and Biosphere Reserve. The reserve, which lies 3,600 metres above sea level and includes the 16,000-hectare Pozuelos lagoon, shelters rich bird life including thousands of flamingos, high-altitude specialists like the Andean avocet and migrant birds from the northern hemisphere.
Staff from the National Parks Administration, which manages the protected area, have lent a hand to build weirs in the rivers that flow through the meadows to the brackish lagoon. Elements of the programme have since been absorbed into the reserve’s management plan.
Carina Rodríguez, the manager of the Laguna de Pozuelos Natural Monument, highlights the positive impact of the progamme’s installation of solar-powered pumps to deliver drinking water for livestock. That means traditional watering holes can be fenced off and filled in to reduce evaporation and contamination.
“This is an area with great scarcity of water,” Rodríguez says. “Due to global climate change, there are more and more periods of drought.”
As well as conserving the wetlands and helping communities adapt to climate change, the programme aims to shield both nature and people from the negative impacts of mining.
El Moreno lies close to Salinas Grandes-Guayatayoc Lagoon, which includes vast salt flats from which sodium and potassium are harvested. Interest in also mining lithium –a metal used in rechargeable batteries, including for electric cars– at the site has stirred local community concern that it could degrade the environment and make water even scarcer.
Wetlands International’s programme works with communities, governments, and companies in an attempt to ensure that mining operations near the wetlands comply with legal, social and environmental standards.
Natividad Vilte, head of the Sol de Mayo Aboriginal Community Organization in El Moreno, says the programme is helping her community to be better prepared to defend their rights against irresponsible lithium mining as well as to restore the wetlands.
“We feel supported because, through these projects, we are working for all the people in our community and raising the issue of the irrigation and water that we depend on.”
Field research and text: Written by Stephen Graham with research and contributions from Silvina Schuchner, Román Baigún, Cecilia Hegoburu and Vanessa Rivero Muñiz
Photos and illustrations: Original photos by Román Baigún, Sebastián Ingrassia, Ron Knight and Heber Sosa, photo artwork by Zoï Environment Network
Web design: Zoï Environment Network
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