EMERGENCY DROUGHT RELIEF AYMARA LLAMA HERDERS (Bolivia)
The situation:
We were contacted by our dear friend and Tribal Gathering’s indigenous delegate for the Aymara people of Bolivia - Tomas Huanacu Tito. His distress call came just right before COP26 and is another loud climate alarm we should all take quite seriously!
His community is currently facing a massive drought, lasting for months now. It is admittedly the biggest one that the Aymara people can remember.
Although these hardworking and modest llama herders have impressively adapted to living conditions at such altitudes, the 21st century has taken it beyond the extreme!
Due to the disturbing consequences of climate change, the whole region has turned into a desert with dried-out wells, hardly any vegetation and its people and animals thirsty for water.
Tomás’s ancestral home is located in the Andean plateau - Altiplano, at 3800 m above sea level. His community is called ‘Parcomarca Copacabana’ and is one out of seven communities in the region of Copacabana de Andamarca, close to the Chilean border and west to Lake Poopó - which also doesn’t carry any more water due to climate change and mining industry sediment buildup!
One hundred and four (104) families from this Aymara community sustain themselves by herding and trading llamas and are traditionally dependent on their existence. Seasonal droughts are known to the Aymara and usually occur during November and December. Aymaras use ancestral rituals and perform offerings to ask for rain. However, this year there was hardly any rain in their territory and while their prayers seem to be left unanswered, even their sacred water crater got completely dry! This never happened before and is considered a particularly bad omen among the people there.
Tomás explains that this situation only continues to progress, becoming much worse every year. Without any rainfall, there is neither vegetation nor any water for the llamas and many of these precious creatures are dying daily. Without llamas, there wouldn’t be any Aymaras either, as the conditions at such heights don’t allow for many alternatives when it comes to sustenance and making a living.
Please Support Us On Our Mission:
The only option for the Parcomarca Copacabana community (besides complete relocation and desertion of their ancestral land, which can hopefully be avoided) is to dig each of the existing wells deeper in the hope to find some water.
On average, It takes more than five hours to excavate each well and the cost of renting an excavator is $50 per hour.
When this gets multiplied by the number of households affected, plus $250 for the transport, the final sum makes this quite a challenging project.
We need to raise funds to excavate as many wells as possible if we want to save the llamas and consequently all the 104 native families living there.
Our goal is to fundraise up to a rough estimate of USD $26,000. We are confident that with your support and solidarity this mission will be a success, just like the previous ones!