Native Peruvian Farmers Taking Hit After Hit - Floods, Drought, Temp Extremes - As Glaciers Vanish

[hatrack]

Maura Flores Choque pulls the bundle in her arms closer. A mop of black hair is all that is visible of the baby beneath a sling of bright cloth. "Children are suffering from intense sun in the day and freezing cold at night," says Flores Choque as she suckles her baby. "I am worried about my family and our future. Our animals are dying. There's not going to be enough food for the whole year." In the Sangarará district of Peru's Cusco region, the challenges of existing 3,700 metres above sea level have always been part of daily life. But over the past three years extreme weather has made that existence far tougher. Experts echo what is being experienced on the ground, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rating Peru as the country third most vulnerable to climate change.

The key reason for this critical status is glacial retreat caused by global warming. Seventy-one per cent of the world's tropical glaciers are found in Peru, but according to Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, they are melting at an alarming rate and have lost 22% of their mass in the last 35 years. Thompson predicts all glaciers above 5,500 metres – almost all those in Peru – will be gone by 2015. Speaking at a 2009 climate change forum he explained the significance of this, stating: "Glaciers, especially tropical glaciers, are the canaries in the coal mine for our global climate system." Children in the poorest communities will be the ones most affected by the deteriorating situation. According to a 2008 Unicef UK climate change report, they face increased risk of malnutrition, disease, poverty, inequality and conflict.

For the indigenous Quechua people like Flores Choque, who have farmed Peru's highlands since the 15th century, the warning signs are already very real. Their farming calendar, dictated by the weather, has traditionally given their lives a steady rhythm. But in the last few years uncharacteristic and unpredictable weather – flooding, frosts, hail, intense heat and drought – has bombarded it. Crops have continually failed and Save the Children research reports production in some areas has fallen as much as 44% since 2007, with animal mortality rising from 20% to 48%. Water supply has diminished and the health and livelihoods of thousands been jeopardised.

Sangarará obstetrician and health centre manager, Sonia Apaza Maita, witnesses daily how living in an already harsh environment on a tightrope of poverty has been compounded by the changing weather. Families, she says, are being forced to make choices for survival and "often animals and land take priority over children." "The people are becoming poorer and malnutrition is increasing," Apaza Maita stresses. "Children don't have defences and their health is suffering. They've always had respiratory problems but now they're much worse. For the first time we have cases of bronchitis."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/amateur-winners-2010-amateurs

[pscot]

1. Wait a minute!. This isn't dancing with the stars!

Yesterday? Really!?