BY: ZAK BENNETT

The lifeblood of Peru is evaporating before its people’s eyes. More than 77 million people get their drinking water and irrigation from the rivers fed by glacier runoff from the snow capped mountains of the Cordillera Blanca.

Very few people realize that Peru is home to 70% of the world’s tropical glaciers. What even less realize is that 40% of the Cordillera Blanca has disappeared since 1970.

Drop after drop, the evaporating glaciers have reduced the water flow to Peru’s coastal regions by 12%, home to over 60% of the countries population. Lima is Peru’s second largest desert city and its agriculture is almost totally dependent on irrigation from the Andean rivers from the Cordillera Central. The same rivers also support the nation’s largest hydroelectric plants, which account for nearly half of the electricity generated in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

If warming trends continue, the Andes Tropical Glaciers could totally disappear in as little as 20 years. So what will become of the people’s water supply?

In this part of the world global warming is no longer dismissed as some abstract political issue, it is a matter of food for children and keeping lights on in city libraries.

Photographer Zachary Bennett documented his recent ascent of the Cordillera Blanca meeting many of the weary faces from Huancayo, a community that relies on the vanishing Huaytapallana glacier for survival.

“Upon visiting, the glacier constantly produces loud eruptions and crackling noises. You can literally hear the fresh water gradually disappearing. If you listen closely you can hear the glacier dying,“ says Bennett.

The families in the area face frequent tsunami warnings as a result of massive avalanches caused by melting chunks of ice barraging their lagoons. Climate change is likely to be a lead cause of salinization and desertification of their agricultural lands. In school they educate their children on climate change and how to prepare for disaster.

“Because of this, ironically, the impoverished people of the Andes, with little education, have a better understanding of global warming than the highly educated societies who are creating the problem,” says Bennett.

The glacier at Lagoon 513, a few hours outside Huaraz, Peru, is one of Peru’s most well-known tropical glaciers. In 2010 falling ice at Lagoon 513 created a large wave measuring approximately 90 feet. It is heavily advised to not visit the lagoon. Avalanches are frequent, and experts predict the largest tsunami the country has ever seen. Loud cracks can be heard constantly. It’s the sound of the glacier dying.

Local Vilcacoto community president Niva Quiñones sadly sits in front of the withering Huaytapallana glacier in the Peruvian Andes, just outside Huancayo, as she describes the days when the area surrounding was covered in ice. Her community relies solely on this glacier as their main source of water for agriculture.

A young boy works with his father on a reforestation project outside of Huancayo, Peru. His father is concerned for the future of his children as the local communities are already suffering from dwindling resources due to the extreme climate changes in the region.

Local school children at the Señor de los Afligidos School in Carhuaz, Peru, go over emergency preparations with their teacher. The children study a map of the glacier and the predicted flood zone. If the children are alerted in time they will be able to escape to safer ground in approximately 12 minutes.

Local school children along the Shulcas River take part in a tsunami simulation with their teachers at the Señor de los Afligidos School in Carhua. The school sits just beneath a melting glacier. In 2010 the glacier directly above their village produced a 90-foot tsunami. The glacier is now capable of producing a tsunami 5 times larger.

A local man in Huancayo works with a water saving sprinkler system for his alfalfa garden. He uses the alfalfa to feed his guinea pigs, a large source of income for people in the region. Locals have become accustomed to flooding of their crops, which is extremely wasteful. The use of modern sprinkler systems allows the community to save water and prepare for the harder times ahead.

A local man tends to his farm in Carhuaz, Peru, in the Peruvian Andes, where he has been learning how to plant climate-resilient crops. Residents of Carhuaz have lived through drastic changes in climatic conditions, including extreme freezes, inconsistent raining and increased pests and plant disease. They’ve been forced to adapt.

Women have become the breadwinners in local villages outside of Huancayo, in the Peruvian Andes, as top chefs are coming to their villages to hand select various types of potatoes to serve in upscale restaurants in Lima. As a part of a female empowerment campaign by CARE Peru, local women have been educated on the cultivation of various types of potatoes. These can be sold at higher prices and also require less water to produce.

CARE Peru Director Milo Stanojevich holds an informational session at a local community centre on ways to adapt to the dwindling resources of water as a result of climate change.

The banks of the Huaytapallana lagoon and glacier are receding. Huaytapallana provides 40 percent of the water flowing in the Shulcas River. The Huaytapallana has reduced in size 50 percent in the past 20 years. That breaks down to approximately an 8.2-meter decrease per year. The glacier is expected to completely disappear by 2030.
Local Vilcacoto community president Niva Quiñones sadly stands with her husband in front of the withering Huaytapallana glacier in the Peruvian Andes. She describes days when the surrounding area was covered in ice and when snowy days were common.