Tribewanted: Vorovoro

In the build up to the exciting events planned next summer we’ll be presenting and inviting a series of blogs about where we will be going and some of the wider implications of what is happening in the area that we’ll be going to. In the same way that Vorovoro looks at both the smaller picture of the island and how that relates to the outside world, then we will aim to do the same in the context of the mountains of Peru.

Where we will be doing our ice climbing is the local Glacier called Pastoruri (which also happens to be the world largest tropical glacier). This is a spectacular 3 hr bus ride from Huaraz and at an altitude of just over 5000 m’s. However apart from the technical aspect of (ice climbing)what we will be learning here this glacier and others in the country is also intrinsically linked to current pressing environmental issues.

The glaciers in Peru ,for some time now, has been receding rapidly. Like Kilimanjaro in Tanzania the ice has been retreating so quickly that some fear that there might be some future danger of them disappearing altogether.
According to recent international research from San Francisco, Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson and a team of scientists said they have found evidence the Qori Kalis glacier of the Quelccaya ice cap in the southern Peruvian Andes could lose half its mass in 12 months and could be gone five years from now.

“The lower elevation tropical glaciers are going right now, no matter what we do we’re going to lose the glaciers on [Mount] Kilimanjaro and we’re going to lose the lower elevation glaciers in the Andes,” said Thompson.
The Quelccaya ice cap covers 44 square kilometres in the Cordillera Oriental region and is the world’s largest tropical ice mass. Its biggest glacier, the Qori Kalis, has receded by at least 1.1 kilometres since 1963, when the first formal measurements were taken. The rate of retreat has increased from six metres per year between 1963 and 1978 to 60 metres per year now, said Thompson. Pastoruri’s own ice cap shrank nearly 40 percent between 1995 and 2005.

Climate change research has focused on melting glaciers in the north and south poles, but tropical glaciers also play a valuable role in local ecosystems as they feed rivers that supply fresh water to areas like Peru’s arid coast.
It is this decreasing amount of potential water that makes life for some very vulnerable.

The majority of Peru’s population lives in a narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains and the sea.

This area is mainly desert and the people who live here receive their water from the mountains. Melting glaciers also provide water for hydroelectricity, industry and farming.

Glaciers feed the rivers that feed the sprawling cities and shantytowns on Peru’s bone-dry Pacific coast. They also serve agriculture and hydroelectric plants that generate 70 percent of the country’s power.

Two-thirds of Peru’s 27 million people live on the coast, where just 1.8 percent of the nation’s water supply is found. Shantytowns spring up virtually overnight in the steep, sandy dunes around the capital, Lima, and providing them with water is extremely costly, says Julio Garcia of the National Environment Council, CONAM.

Pressure on water resources is only likely to grow as more and more people move to coastal cities like the capital Lima and industry expands. But the source of that water is now increasingly under pressure.
Check out these links for more info

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/glaciers.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4720621.stm
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=72091&keybold=global%20warming%20Andes%20potatoes

Those who have any queries on Tribewanted: Andina, please drop me a line giles@tribewanted.com

For those interested in the expedition go to www.tribewanted.com/blog/andina