PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru (CNS) -- Julio Cusurichi worries about the weather in this steamy corner of Peru, where he and his Shipibo Indian neighbors plant small plots of corn, beans and cassava to feed their families.
"There used to be a pronounced summer and winter," he says. "Now it's crazy. One day it's cold, the next it's hot. You don't know when to get ready to plant."
Despite the thunderheads that gather almost every afternoon, he is also concerned about water.
"The streams aren't like they used to be," he says. "They're smaller."
Climate experts warn that the western edge of the Amazon basin, at the base of the Andes in Peru, could see hotter, drier weather because of climate change. Cusurichi is not surprised.
"I've been talking about climate change since 2000, even though people told me I was crazy," he says.
Throughout Latin America, from coastal fishing villages to urban shantytowns, from the Andes to the Amazon, poor people and indigenous communities are expected to bear the brunt of climate change. Decisions made at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Dec. 7-18 will directly affect their ability to adjust to the changes.
Church leaders are speaking out about the consequences of a warming climate and the need for financial and technological assistance to help poor people and small farmers adapt.
"Based on the teaching of the Catholic Church, we have the responsibility to be stewards of the planet," Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imero of San Marcos, Guatemala, told Catholic News Service. "That stewardship is lacking. And climate change has the greatest impact on the poor and the vulnerable."
Bishop Ramazzini was part of a delegation of prelates who traveled to the United Nations in September to talk with environment ministers from around the world about the need for strong action at the climate conference in Copenhagen. As the conference approaches, however, he worries that major greenhouse gas emitters, such as the United States and China, are unwilling to commit to major changes.
"I have little hope that countries will make radical decisions in Copenhagen that can help stop climate change," Bishop Ramazzini said. "In addition, the voices of poor countries and small countries tend not to be heard in these big meetings."
Guatemala and other parts of Central America are already feeling the stress of climate change, with drought in some areas and unusually heavy rains in others.
"Small farmers say we no longer have stable seasons," the bishop said.
That perception is echoed elsewhere in Latin America. In the southern Peruvian Andes, indigenous farmers have seen glaciers shrink by about 30 percent in the past three decades. Farmers rely on rain to irrigate their crops during the growing season, between November and May, but glacial runoff provides drinking water for people and livestock during the rest of the year. It also waters the boggy high-mountain pastures where farmers raise llamas and alpacas.
Villagers in Machata, east of Cuzco, have watched Mt. Ausangate, a huge peak of rock that is sacred to the local people, turn from white to black as its snowcap melts.
"We're worried about our children's future," farmer Crispin Mamani Condor said. "We know that in other places, water is more expensive. We're worried that the water will disappear."
Local governments have been slow to respond, said Magda Mateos Cardenas of the St. Joseph the Worker Association, a Jesuit-run social service organization in Andahuaylillas, between Machata and Cuzco. While most climate change adaptation projects focus on technical solutions, such as installing drip irrigation systems and building reservoirs, governments need to take a long-term view and reforest watersheds with native tree species to help capture water and prevent erosion, she said.
Her view is borne out by historical evidence. Recent research by British scientists Alex Chepstow-Lusty and David Beresford-Jones on the Peruvian coast indicates that the collapse of the Nazca culture, which flourished on the arid Peruvian coast until 500 AD, coincided with a drought that was probably aggravated by clearing of trees in the desert along the Andean foothills to plant cotton and corn.
On the eastern side of the Andes, scientists worry about the effects of deforestation in the Amazon. Worldwide, loss of tropical forests is responsible for about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Source:thebostonpilot.com/
