As Glaciers Go And Cities Grow, Tensions Build Within And Among Andean Nations

[hatrack]

ICA, Peru — Two decades ago, the strip of sand between the Pacific Ocean and the Andean foothills was empty except for the occasional fig or carob tree. But the northern end of perhaps the world's driest desert – a harsh and unforgiving clime — is now the center of Peru's export agriculture industry. Rising demand for irrigation and drinking water is draining the aquifer faster than it can recharge, and a scheme to channel more water from the Andean highlands, which receive seasonal rainfall, is pitting big agribusinesses on the coast against Quechua-speaking llama herders in the mountains.

Experts say the conflict is just one sign of rising tensions over water use as supplies of the vital resource dwindle and shift with changes in climate. "Water belongs to the people who need it most, and we need it most," says Gino Gotuzzo, of the Farmers Association of Ica, who grows asparagus and some other crops on about 60 acres of desert. Up the mountain, however, Quechua-speaking farmers say plans to channel runoff to coastal farms will dry up the spongy high-mountain wetlands where they pasture llamas and alpacas, ruining their livelihood.

Peruvian officials brush aside the specter of "water refugees." As supplies dwindle, they say, they can channel water from the highlands, where rain falls between October and April, or divert rivers that flow east to Amazonia, which receives more precipitation than its sparse population uses. Nevertheless, droughts associated with El Niño events in the 1980s and 1990s spurred increased migration from rural areas to cities in Peru, and the exodus from Brazil's chronically drought-stricken northeast is one factor in that country's Amazonian deforestation.

With cities growing and agriculture expanding throughout South America, experts predict that climate change will exacerbate water scarcity, increasing conflicts between competing users, pitting city dwellers against rural residents, people in dry lands against those in areas with abundant rainfall, Andean mining companies against neighboring farm communities, and eucalyptus plantation operators on the Argentinian and Uruguayan plains against farmers who say the trees are sucking the water table dry. In Peru, officials say the problem is not water scarcity, but Nature's poor distribution. More than two-thirds of the country's 29 million people live on the dry western side of the Andes, where less than 2 percent of the country's water flows, while only one-fourth live in Amazonia, which can get more than 80 inches of rain a year.

EDIT

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2009/05/glaciers-go-leaving-drought-conflict-and-tension

[Nihil]

1. This week's winner of the "TANSTAAFL" award.

> "Water belongs to the people who need it most, and we need it most,"
> says Gino Gotuzzo, of the Farmers Association of Ica, who grows
> asparagus and some other crops on about 60 acres of desert.

Nothing like a bit of well-sponsored greed to f*ck up the environment.

:grr:

> In Peru, officials say the problem is not water scarcity, but Nature's
> poor distribution.

I beg to differ: the problem is water wastage & ineffeciency combined with
the poor distribution of the (human) Peruvians ...

> More than two-thirds of the country's 29 million people live on the dry
> western side of the Andes, where less than 2 percent of the country's
> water flows
= Too many people for the environment.

> Two decades ago, the strip of sand between the Pacific Ocean and the
> Andean foothills was empty except for the occasional fig or carob tree.
> But the northern end of perhaps the world's driest desert – a harsh and
> unforgiving clime — is now the center of Peru's export agriculture
> industry. Rising demand for irrigation and drinking water is draining
> the aquifer faster than it can recharge

=Gross idiocy on the part of people who expected to be able to change one
of the driest parts of the planet into an agricultural profit-centre without
causing problems.

The problem is nothing to do with "Nature's distribution" but the stupid
fucking plans of greedy humans.

:mad: