tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/andes-17589/articles
Andes – The Conversation
2023-11-27T17:01:47Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218408
2023-11-27T17:01:47Z
2023-11-27T17:01:47Z
A Peruvian farmer is trying to hold energy giant RWE responsible for climate change – the inside story of his groundbreaking court case
<p>On a crisp, sunny day high in the Peruvian Andes, two German judges gaze across a mountain lake to the towering white glaciers in the distance. Dark spots are visible on the pristine ice and, in quiet moments, the cold wind carries the sounds of creaking and cracking.</p>
<p>The judges, from the German city of Hamm, have flown more than 6,500 miles to witness the melting glaciers for themselves. It is May 2022 and their visit has taken more than three years to organise – and some intensive diplomatic negotiations between Peru and Germany. Also here, more than 4,500 metres above sea level, are five German and Austrian scientific experts flying drones to assess whether Lake Palcacocha poses a significant risk of flooding to the thousands of people in the valley below.</p>
<p>A throng of local Peruvian officials have tagged along too, to share their concerns about <a href="https://glacierlab.uoregon.edu/glacier-hazards-and-disasters/">glacier hazards</a> with the judges. Around two-dozen international journalists and four documentary film teams are in the area to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/peru-climate-lawsuit-melting-glacier/">cover the event</a>. But the judges have requested they stay away from the lake so the court can do its work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A high-altitude blue lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Palcacocha is fed by the region’s accelerating glacial melt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The deep-blue water glistens ominously in the sunshine. The lake is fed by the region’s accelerating <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-2/">glacial melt</a>, powered by warming temperatures that were long ago shown to be the <a href="https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10299146">result of human climate emissions</a>.</p>
<p>Lake Palcacocha is the subject of an <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/lliuya-v-rwe-ag/">unprecedented climate justice lawsuit</a>. On one side, a German energy giant that is said to be responsible for 0.47% of the world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions. On the other, a Quechua-speaking farmer who had never travelled outside Peru until he joined this <a href="https://climatecase.org/en">groundbreaking legal challenge</a>.</p>
<h2>The unlikely plaintiff</h2>
<p>The Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the northern Peruvian Andes is a region shaped by disaster. In 1941, Lake Palcacocha’s banks broke, probably due to an avalanche, devastating the city of Huaraz downstream and killing around 2,000 people.</p>
<p>The region’s most devastating disaster occurred three decades later in 1970, when an earthquake caused another massive avalanche that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Huascar%C3%A1n_debris_avalanche">destroyed the town of Yungay</a> and nearby villages, burying 30,000 people (although many of the town’s children survived because they were attending a nearby circus show). The disaster left a deep impact on the area’s social and cultural fabric. Yungay was permanently relocated and authorities stepped up their efforts to monitor glacial hazards.</p>
<p>As well as being a farmer, Saúl Luciano Lliuya works here as a mountain guide, leading tourists up the icy peaks year after year. Now in his early 40s, he came of age at a time of unprecedented environmental change in his homeland. Avalanches and glacial floods <a href="https://www.preventionweb.net/news/peru-dangers-glacial-lake-floods-pioneering-and-capitulation#:%7E:text=Climate%20change%20is%20creating%20new,Cordillera%20Blanca%20to%20expand%20rapidly.">happen more and more often</a>, and he has lost a number of colleagues and friends. <a href="https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/20/2519/2016/">Flood modelling studies</a> show that Luciano Lliuya’s family home is in the danger zone if another large avalanche was to fall into Lake Palcacocha, causing its banks to burst.</p>
<p>As in many parts of the world, climate change has intensified existing vulnerabilities in the rural Andes while creating new dimensions of risk. Luciano Lliuya comes from an Indigenous population subjugated by Spanish colonisers that still faces marginalisation today. He grew up speaking Quechua at home and faced discrimination at school in Huaraz. Teachers only used Spanish and beat children for speaking their Indigenous language.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In recent decades, an upsurge in mountain climbing tourism has created new opportunities for villagers such as Luciano Lliuya, who have traversed high altitudes since an early age. To them, mountains are more than just boulders and ice. “A mountain is a geological formation,” he says, “but another perspective is that the mountains nurture us. They are powerful beings of some sort … For me, the mountain is someone who gives you everything.”</p>
<p>Many of the local people make tribute payments to these mountains, hoping to avoid their wrath and guarantee plentiful harvests. Up at Lake Palcacocha, the villagers who oversee an early-warning flooding system installed by the Ancash region’s government also present ritual offerings to the mountains every month. They say that when they missed one in 2017, an avalanche crashed into the lake causing waves of several metres – but that time, the old safety dams held steady.</p>
<p>Luciano Lliuya too feels a deep responsibility for the mountains that are suffering as they <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7610">lose their white covers</a>. Before summiting a peak on a climbing tour, he pays respect by laying coca leaves on the glacial ice. If he fails to show respect, he fears the mountain will show its anger.</p>
<p>Almost ten years ago, Luciano Lliuya was introduced via his father to a group of climate activists from the environmental NGO <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/en/about">Germanwatch</a>. They discussed the chance to ask one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, German energy giant RWE, to make a tribute payment to these mountains too.</p>
<p>If the case succeeds, it could set a global precedent to hold major polluters responsible for the effects of climate change, even on the other side of the world. Already, it has had a significant impact. After the case was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/30/german-court-to-hear-peruvian-farmers-climate-case-against-rwe">declared admissible by the German judges</a> in November 2017 – meaning that Luciano Lliuya had won a key legal argument, if not yet the scientific ones – RWE’s stock value <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/working-paper-397_-Sato-Gostlow-Higham-Setzer-Venmans.pdf">took a hit</a>. This reflects a broader trend: international companies and their investors are waking up to the <a href="https://greencentralbanking.com/research/impacts-of-climate-litigation-on-firm-value/">financial risks posed by climate litigation</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FqTd7Bp2Fjc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Taking on a German energy giant</h2>
<p>Meeting Luciano Lliuya in his tiny village of Llupa, you’d hardly think he’d become something of a climate justice celebrity. The case has taken him to German courts and international UN summits. Having once been nervous about speaking at his local village assemblies, he has now addressed thousands of people at major climate marches and given countless interviews to the world’s press.</p>
<p>At home, his quiet life is periodically disturbed by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAcJile4Idk">visiting film teams</a>. He says he doesn’t care much for stardom, but appreciates the interest in his legal case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want people to know what we’re facing here in Peru. The people in wealthy countries like Germany should understand how climate change is making our lives more dangerous. Perhaps that will motivate them to stop polluting so much.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I first visited his two-storey family home in December 2014, when I was asked to interpret for three representatives from Germanwatch (I’ve since worked with Luciano Lliuya as a legal strategist, scientific adviser and academic researcher). We were treated to a special meal of guinea pig and potatoes with red chilli sauce. Half-way through, he smiled and glanced around the table at his fellow diners including his father, Julio. Then he told us all quietly: “I’ll do it. I’ll do the claim.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Peruvian man standing amid mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saúl Luciano Lliuya in his mountain home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That moment marked a transformation of Luciano Lliuya’s life – and mine. In the run-up to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference">2014 UN Climate Summit</a> (COP20) in Peru’s capital, Lima, Germanwatch employees had been taking an interest in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range – a region of particular concern for its vulnerability to climate change. Having recently lived in Peru, I joined the team as they looked for local people in the Andes to help voice this concern.</p>
<p>A Peruvian friend who was working with local farmers in the region suggested Julio Luciano Lliuya, who had recently told him how badly climate change was affecting their community’s livelihood. Following two weeks of intense UN negotiations at the COP20 summit, I embarked on an eight-hour bus ride to Huaraz with three Germanwatch representatives.</p>
<p>Father and son met us in the city with their rickety old Toyota van. Navigating uneven dirt-track roads, they took us on a tour of the mountains and told us about their climate-related concerns: in the short term, glacial retreat causing disastrous avalanches and floods; in the longer term, water scarcity threatening their very way of being.</p>
<p>Keen to show us the glaciers up close, Julio’s only son Saúl took us on a six-hour trek up to Lake Palcacocha. The hike was so strenuous that two of my colleagues had to turn around halfway, struggling with altitude sickness. Whatever breath I had left was taken away when I first glimpsed the lake, with those shiny white glaciers framing its deep blue water.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mountain lake and the glaciers that feed it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Palcacocha has previously flooded the valley below with catastrophic results.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Walking along the lake’s edge, a distant crash broke the silence. “It’s just a small avalanche – that happens all the time,” explained one of the villagers working for the local government who are present here around the clock to watch over the lake. Far away on the glacier, I spotted a flurry of falling snow. “You see? This one didn’t even reach the lake.” I wondered about the consequences of a bigger avalanche on the residents of the valley below, including the Luciano Lliuya family.</p>
<p>Back down in the village over our guinea pig lunch, Julio (who was in his seventies) explained he had transferred his property in the flood danger zone to his seven children. To our surprise, the youngest of them, Saúl, offered to make the claim against RWE.</p>
<p>“All right then,” said Christoph Bals, Germanwatch’s policy director. “We’re going to court!”</p>
<h2>An outlandish idea</h2>
<p>When I began working on this project nearly a decade ago, holding a major emitter responsible for climate change occurring across the world seemed an outlandish idea. <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3351365">German lawyers</a> had come up with the idea of bringing a claim under the country’s <a href="https://jur-law.de/en/2022/04/neighborhood-right-federation-state-berlin-2/">neighbourhood law</a> (part of the extensive <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb.html#p3704">German Civil Code</a>) – but this idea had yet to be tested in court.</p>
<p>When Saúl Luciano Lliuya first heard about this option, he said his preferred option was to confront a major polluter, so we settled on a claim against the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWE">German multinational RWE</a>. Based some 6,500 miles away in the industrial city of Essen, RWE has produced coal-fired energy since it was founded in the 19th century. Much more recently, its plans for the huge new Garzweiler open-cast coalmine in western Germany have been met with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/24/eviction-lutzerath-village-destroyed-coalmine-a-photo-essay">sustained protests</a> and some controversy about <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-police-have-long-collaborated-with-energy-giant-rwe-to-enforce-ecological-catastrophe-198095">RWE’s relationship with the regional police</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/german-police-have-long-collaborated-with-energy-giant-rwe-to-enforce-ecological-catastrophe-198095">German police have long collaborated with energy giant RWE to enforce ecological catastrophe</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Over the past 25 years, the energy company has diversified into renewable energy, and states that it will be “<a href="https://www.rwe.com/en/responsibility-and-sustainability/environmental-protection/climate-protection/#:%7E:text=RWE%20will%20be%20climate%20neutral,with%20the%20Paris%20Climate%20Agreement.">climate neutral by 2040</a>”. A <a href="https://climateaccountability.org/pdf/MRR%209.1%20Apr14R.pdf">2014 study</a>, commissioned by the <a href="https://climatejustice.org.au/about-us">Climate Justice Programme</a> in Australia, estimated that RWE had produced 0.47% of all the world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions between 1854 and 2010. </p>
<p>In Luciano Lliuya’s homeland, the local government plans to build a new dam and drainage system at Lake Palcacocha to reduce the risk of flooding, at a projected cost of about US$4 million. Luciano Lliuya, via the lawsuit, wants RWE to cover 0.47% of that sum, or around US$20,000.</p>
<p>The case’s central argument is simple: that climate change makes <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14634996221138338">everyone in the world potential neighbours</a> – so, RWE should be a good neighbour and accept its responsibility for contributing to climate change impacts in Peru.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Judges and photographers in a German courtroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judges hear the climate lawsuit against RWE in Hamm’s higher regional court, November 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially, a lower court in Essen <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/en/13887">ruled</a> (in December 2016) that the lawsuit against the energy giant was <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/material/district-court-essen-decision">unfounded</a>. However, the following November, this was <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/material/higher-regional-court-hamm-indicative-court-order-and-order-hearing-evidence">overruled</a> by the Higher Regional Court in Hamm, which declared the case admissible and began examining the evidence.</p>
<p>The requested sum of US$20,000 is a symbolic amount of money, of course – RWE’s legal costs are likely to go much higher. Yet, when the judges suggested an out-of-court settlement at a hearing in 2017, the company’s lawyer refused, stating: “This is a matter of precedent.”</p>
<p>The estimated cost of future climate-related claims extends <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/055ef9f4-5fb7-4746-bebd-7bfa00b20c82">into the billions</a>.</p>
<h2>The legal strategy</h2>
<p>“This feels like we’re at 5,000 metres in the Andes,” remarks Saúl Luciano Lliuya as, fighting a biting wind, we walk to the Essen courthouse. It is November 2015 and this is his first trip outside Peru – accompanied by his father. Acting as guide and interpreter, I freeze alongside them in my thick winter coat while these two hardy Peruvians sport only light jackets.</p>
<p>A TV crew is filming as Luciano Lliuya enters the courthouse with his lawyer to submit the claim against RWE. They emerge a few minutes later, and he gives a statement to the awaiting journalists and TV cameras:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m making this claim because the mountains in Peru are suffering. The glaciers are melting. We haven’t caused this problem – it’s big companies like RWE. Now they must take responsibility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Speaking to the press is a new and nerve-wracking experience for him. But when he thinks about the mountains and why he is taking this action, a fire seems to light up inside.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Peruvian men outside a courthouse, one holding a large envelope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saúl Luciano Lliuya and his father Julio file the lawsuit at Essen courthouse, November 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Hubert Perschke/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later that day, after we escape the cameras, I ask what his neighbours back in Peru think about the lawsuit. His only aim, after all, is to benefit his community in the face of dramatic changes to their Andean environment. He seeks no personal gain; only that RWE covers part of the costs of a public infrastructure project to reduce the risk of flooding from Lake Palcacocha.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what [my fellow villagers] think,” Luciano Lliuya replies. “I haven’t told anyone.” Acknowledging my surprise, he says he isn’t sure how to explain it to them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They live with climate change in their own way, but they don’t all have the scientific facts. I’m afraid that some people might not understand how me going to Germany helps us in Peru.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It turns out that his fear is well-founded. When his neighbours find out about his legal claim – whether from news reports, social media or word of mouth – some are confused by it. Rumours begin to spread: that he is making lots of money from the claim, or selling the lake to the Germans. Upon his return home, he explains to his neighbours that nobody is paying him to make the claim, and that success would ultimately help them all. Still, many remain suspicious.</p>
<p>The irony that this case, revolving around <a href="https://www.everestate.com/blog/neighbourhood-law">neighbourhood law</a>, risks upsetting his own neighbours in Peru is not lost on Luciano Lliuya. The lawsuit applies <a href="https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/2019/05/01/from-nuisance-to-environmental-protection-in-continental-europe-article-by-vanessa-casado-perez-carlos-gomez-liguerre/">nuisance law</a>, which is typically applied in neighbourhood disputes, to climate change impacts.</p>
<p>Imagine this: your neighbour has a wall that borders on your property. The wall is old and crumbling, and you’re afraid it could fall over and damage your house. If that happens, you can sue your neighbour for damages. But you’d rather not wait – you don’t want to live with the uncertainty. So instead, you sue your neighbour using the nuisance law. If you win, the court will order them to fix the wall – or in Luciano Lliuya’s case, get rid of the flood hazard.</p>
<p>Around the world, others have attempted similar lawsuits before, to no avail. In 2008, for example, the Native Alaskan community of Kivalina <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/native-village-of-kivalina-v-exxonmobil-corp/">filed a claim</a> against ExxonMobil and other oil majors in the US. Their village is threatened by rising sea levels, so the complainants demanded support for adaptation costs – but that case was dismissed on the grounds that climate change is a political issue that should not be resolved in the courts.</p>
<p>Since then, political progress has proved largely inadequate in mobilising support for those who are most vulnerable to climate change. At the same time, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01086-7">climate science has evolved rapidly</a>, drawing ever more precise links between major emitters and impacts around the world.</p>
<p>Since 2017, around 40 US states and cities have <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-two-dozen-cities-and-states-are-suing-big-oil-over-climate-change-they-just-got-a-boost-from-the-us-supreme-court-205009">filed lawsuits</a> against the fossil fuel industry, arguing that companies such as ExxonMobil <a href="https://theconversation.com/exxon-scientists-accurately-forecast-climate-change-back-in-the-1970s-what-if-we-had-listened-to-them-and-acted-then-197944">knew about the dangers of climate change decades ago</a> but hid this knowledge from consumers. The plaintiffs have included cities such as New York and San Francisco that are threatened by sea level rise and have demanded billions of dollars to cover their adaptation costs. Their actions have received support from US president Joe Biden’s administration, and earlier in 2023, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/25/experts-hail-decision-us-climate-lawsuits-advance">the Supreme Court ruled</a> the cases should be heard in state rather than federal courts. Many legal analysts believe these cases have a better chance of success in state courts, and they are likely to go to trial soon.</p>
<p>After Dutch NGO <a href="https://en.milieudefensie.nl/about-us">Milieudefensie</a> filed a lawsuit against the oil and gas multinational Shell, in 2021 a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/court-orders-royal-dutch-shell-to-cut-carbon-emissions-by-45-by-2030">Dutch court ordered</a> that the company should reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030. (There are, though, enforcement challenges with multinational corporations, and since the verdict Shell has moved its corporate headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK.) Lawsuits in numerous countries have forced governments to increase climate action. But, almost eight years after he delivered the complaint to the snowy Essen courthouse in November 2015, Luciano Lliuya’s case has made it furthest of all.</p>
<p>Most fossil fuel companies are no longer engaging in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline">climate denial</a>. RWE acknowledges the dangers of global warming and claims to be <a href="https://www.rwe.com/-/media/RWE/documents/09-verantwortung-nachhaltigkeit/cr-berichte/sustainability-strategy-report-2022.pdf">“at the leading edge of the shift to sustainable energy.”</a> Yet the company is still making massive profits with fossil fuels, and refuses to pay up for damage caused by past emissions.</p>
<h2>A battle over the science</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>I know of no other case where attribution science is so important. This is a real battle of science. (Roda Verheyen, Luciano Lliuya’s lead lawyer)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In early 2021, Luciano Lliuya’s legal team submitted a new piece of impartial evidence: a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00686-4">scientific study</a> linking flood risk in the Peruvian Andes to global warming. It found that around 95% of the glacier’s retreat at Lake Palcacocha is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/04/global-heating-to-blame-for-threat-of-deadly-flood-in-peru-study-says">due to human-made climate change</a>. One media article called it a “<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04022021/for-a-city-staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-climate-driven-flood-a-new-study-could-be-the-smoking-gun/">smoking gun</a>”.</p>
<p>After RWE’s lawyers challenged the legal validity of the study, in July 2021 the court <a href="https://climatecase.org/en/material/higher-regional-court-hamm-order-and-reference-order">acknowledged it</a> as a piece of independently produced evidence, meaning it is “of higher value than private expert opinions commissioned by the parties”.</p>
<p>In response, RWE’s legal team presented a <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/14/2694">study in the scientific journal Remote Sensing</a>, which analysed satellite data for the glacier above Lake Palcacocha and found there was “no evidence of significant glacial instability” within a three-year observation period. RWE’s lawyers used this study to argue that a large avalanche is unlikely – a position that has been strongly contested by Luciano Lliuya’s legal team.</p>
<p>RWE states that as well as modernising its coal-fired power plants to reduce CO₂ emissions, it has invested billions in renewable energy, reflecting <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/issues/climate-action/government-climate-policy-1779414">Germany’s policy to phase out fossil fuels</a>. Within an article about the case on the <a href="https://www.source-material.org/battle-of-science-rages-over-peru-glacier/">climate investigations website SourceMaterial</a>, RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Individual emitters are not liable for universally rooted and globally effective processes like climate change. It is judicially impossible to relate specific or individual consequences of climate change to a single person.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘This close to winning’</h2>
<p>In the years since I first met Luciano Lliuya in 2014, as well as working with him as a legal adviser and strategist, I’ve also <a href="https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:327995">completed a PhD</a> on how climate change affects people in the Peruvian Andes, linking their concerns with legal and political discussions across the world. But the case is still far from over: legal proceedings move slowly, and the next hearing is due to be held in the first half of 2024.</p>
<p>But the case has already inspired other claims: in July 2022, Indonesian islanders threatened by sea-level rise filed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/20/indonesian-islanders-sue-cement-holcim-climate-damages">similar lawsuit</a> against the Swiss cement producer Holcim. A <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/greenpeace-italy-et-al-v-eni-spa-the-italian-ministry-of-economy-and-finance-and-cassa-depositi-e-prestiti-spa/">recent case</a> in Italy asks for a declaration of responsibility for climate damage from ENI, an Italian oil company. And in September 2023, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/portuguese-youths-sue-33-european-governments-at-eu-court-in-largest-climate-case-ever-214092">European Court of Human Rights heard a legal action</a> posed by Portuguese young people aged 11-24 against 33 European governments over what they claim is a failure to adequately tackle global heating.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the plight of Luciano Lliuya’s community has been covered by <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/press-review">media outlets across the planet</a>. When his lawsuit began, it felt to all involved that victory was nearly impossible – we might get past a few legal hurdles, then move on to the next case. Almost a decade on, we never imagined we’d get this far, and be this close to winning the case.</p>
<p>Back in Luciano Lliuya’s village, the criticism of his motives has slowly subsided. “A big step was when the court came to visit us [in 2022],” Luciano Lliuya explains. “People saw that this is something serious. It wasn’t just me.”</p>
<p>Community leaders joined the court’s inspection at Lake Palcacocha and shook the judges’ hands. At the same time, Luciano Lliuya has helped establish a local NGO that supports farmers in adapting to climate change through sustainable agriculture. The organisation is called <a href="https://www.wayintsikperu.org/en">Wayintsik</a> – Quechua for “our house”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Peruvian man with grassy mountains behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luciano Lliuya says he feels responsibility for the mountains that are suffering as they lose their white covers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the legal process moves slowly on, they have no choice but to adapt – and not just to the threat posed by the lake. Weather patterns are becoming less reliable. The Peruvian Andes usually have a dry season from May to August, and farmers rely on the first rains in September to plant their crops. Now, the rains sometimes begin too early, or not until November. New pests are also harming their potato harvests – the warming climate has brought rats to higher altitudes, for example.</p>
<p>In the long term, climate change could have even more devastating impacts on Luciano Lliuya’s community. Glaciers are natural water storage devices so, as they disappear, the people here will face <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581822000763">water scarcity</a>. “If there’s no more water,” he says, “we’ll lose our livelihoods. There will be nothing left.” No water for the fields, no glaciers to climb.</p>
<p>But Luciano Lliuya is stubborn. In the face of malicious rumours and unwanted attention, others might have given up. He just climbed more mountains.</p>
<p>After attending COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in November 2022, he went on an all-night trek which included climbing Mount Sinai, following in the steps of Moses. The sandy landscape was a sharp contrast to the glaciers and green pastures he is used to in Peru. Squinting into the rising sun, he reflected on the perils of life on a warming planet.</p>
<p>He said it made him imagine a bleak future in which the whole world resembles these surroundings: “That’s why I’ll continue fighting – so that our mountains back home don’t turn to desert too one day.”</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/victims-of-the-green-energy-boom-the-indonesians-facing-eviction-over-a-china-backed-plan-to-turn-their-island-into-a-solar-panel-ecocity-214755?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Victims of the green energy boom? The Indonesians facing eviction over a China-backed plan to turn their island into a solar panel ‘ecocity’
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-disappearance-became-a-global-weapon-of-psychological-control-50-years-on-from-chiles-us-backed-coup-213014?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">How disappearance became a global weapon of psychological control, 50 years on from Chile’s US-backed coup
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-melting-arctic-is-a-crime-scene-the-microbes-i-study-have-long-warned-us-of-this-catastrophe-but-they-are-also-driving-it-207785?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The melting Arctic is a crime scene. The microbes I study have long warned us of this catastrophe – but they are also driving it
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Climate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap
</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noah Walker-Crawford receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom and the Foundation for International Law for the Environment. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit (Foundation for Sustainability). He was previously employed by and has acted as a consultant for Germanwatch. </span></em></p>
If this case succeeds, it could set a precedent to hold major polluters responsible for the effects of climate change – even on the other side of the world.
Noah Walker-Crawford, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Political Science, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211062
2023-08-04T15:12:17Z
2023-08-04T15:12:17Z
One of 2023’s most extreme heatwaves is happening in the middle of winter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541249/original/file-20230804-21-fsmt9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C2592%2C1446&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Temperature anomaly on Wednesday August 2 2023. Red areas of Chile and northern Argentina are much hotter than the long-term average for this time of year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/">ClimateReanalyzer.org</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Temperatures in parts of Chile and northern Argentina have soared to <a href="https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1686485331539820545">10°C-20°C above average</a> over the last few days. Towns in the Andes mountains have reached <a href="https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1686535219350806528">38°C or more</a>, while Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, saw temperatures <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-scorching-winter-argentina-s-capital-breaks-record-for-hottest-start-to-august-in-117-years-1.6503065">above 30°C</a> – breaking its previous August record by more than 5°C. Temperatures peaked at 39°C in the town of <a href="https://twitter.com/SMN_Argentina/status/1687079796692398080">Rivadavia</a>. </p>
<p>Bear in mind it’s mid-winter in this part of the world. And it’s far south enough that seasonal variations have a substantial impact on temperatures. Buenos Aires, for instance, is as far south as Japan, Tibet or Tennessee are north. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1686485331539820545"}"></div></p>
<p>In terms of deviation from temperatures you might expect at a certain place and time of year, this heatwave is comparable to, if not greater than, the recent heatwaves in <a href="https://theconversation.com/european-heatwave-whats-causing-it-and-is-climate-change-to-blame-209653">southern Europe</a>, the US and China. In Vicuña, one of the towns in the Chilean Andes that recently reached 38°C, a typical August day might be <a href="https://weatherspark.com/y/26539/Average-Weather-in-Vicu%C3%B1a-Chile-Year-Round">18°C or so</a> – just imagine it being a whole 20°C warmer than normal wherever you are now.</p>
<p>No wonder some climate scientists have already suggested this could be <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateDann/status/1687032987135725569">one of the most extreme heatwaves on record</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s causing the extreme heat?</h2>
<p>Over the past six days, a persistent area of high pressure, or anticyclone, has lingered to the east of the Andes. Also known as a “blocking high”, this appears to be the key driver of the intense heat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Annotated map of South America" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541258/original/file-20230804-25-f3znn9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The blocking anticyclone driving the Chile-Argentina heatwave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GFS analysis data</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Blocking anticyclones can drive heatwaves in three main ways. Firstly, they pull warmer air from closer to the equator towards them. The system also compresses and traps the air, heating it up, as was the case for the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36289-3">2021 heatwave in the Pacific Northwest</a>, which shattered the Canadian temperature record by nearly 5°C. Finally, the high pressure means there is little ascending air and hence little cloud cover. This allows the sun to heat the land continuously during the day, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169809515001738?via%3Dihub">building up heat</a>.</p>
<p>However, scientists need to analyse the meteorology of this unprecedented event in more detail to gain a more complete understanding.</p>
<h2>El Niño made this more likely</h2>
<p>The Chile-Argentina heatwave may have been made more likely by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-el-nino-means-for-the-worlds-perilous-climate-tipping-points-209083">developing El Niño</a> in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño events, which typically occur every four years or so, are characterised by warm sea surface temperatures in the central-to-eastern tropical Pacific. Temperatures in the central Pacific are currently <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks/el-nino-la-nina">about 1°C above average</a> for the time of year.</p>
<p>These warmer ocean temperatures make air more buoyant over the central Pacific, causing the air to rise. This drives changes to atmospheric circulation patterns further afield. El Niño-induced changes to atmospheric circulation typically mean higher pressure and warmer winter temperatures for <a href="https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/22/3/2009/adgeo-22-3-2009.pdf">this part of South America</a>.</p>
<h2>Climate change made it worse</h2>
<p>The blocking system driving the extreme heat would probably have led to warm temperatures even in the absence of anthropogenic climate change. However, the rapid warming of climate change allowed the heatwave to become truly unprecedented.</p>
<p>Climate scientists expect to see <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abm6860">temperature records broken</a> as our planet continues to heat up. This is because the distribution of possible temperatures is shifting higher and higher.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Annotated graph" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541251/original/file-20230804-29-96u3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An increase in averages means an increase in extremes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australia Climate Commission/IPCC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chile has already experienced the effects of climate change recently through a severe heatwave in February – late summer – resulting in several deaths from <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-latin-america-caribbean-climate-and-environment-fires-f1eaf0919c9b9b9d1f88d60be2191d78">wildfires</a>, as well as a decade-long <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/01/chiles-water-crisis-megadrought-reaching-breaking-point">mega-drought</a>. The country recently <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2022/09/05/gigantic-missed-opportunity-chile-rejects-green-constitution-faces-uncertainty/">rejected</a> a rewrite of the constitution which would have mandated its government to take action against the nature and climate crises.</p>
<h2>The longer-term impact of a winter heatwave</h2>
<p>The hottest temperatures now appear to have largely subsided in the Andes. However, temperatures are still well above average for northern Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, and will remain so for the next five days or so.</p>
<p>The impacts of winter heatwaves are less well understood than summer heatwaves. For Chile, the most likely impact is on <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/climate-change-chile-argentina-face-scorching-heat-wave-in-middle-of-winter-621920">snowpack in the mountains</a>, which provides water for <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150100/snow-blanket-for-the-andes">drinking, agriculture and power generation</a>. Any melting of the snowpack will probably also affect the diverse flora and fauna found in the Andes.</p>
<p>Overall, this heatwave is a startling reminder of how humans are changing Earth’s climate. We will continue to see such unprecedented extremes until we stop burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Patterson receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.</span></em></p>
Parts of Argentina and the Chilean Andes experienced some of their highest temperatures on record.
Matthew Patterson, Postdoctoral Research Assistant in in Atmospheric Physics, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198081
2023-01-23T17:15:58Z
2023-01-23T17:15:58Z
Peru riots: unrest in southern Andes lays bare an urgent need to decolonise
<p>Peru is in flames. Since early December, massive, often violent, protests have <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/16/americas/peru-protests-explainer-intl-latam/index.html">engulfed the South American nation</a>. Demonstrators concentrated in the country’s southern Andean regions took to the streets after the then president, Pedro Castillo, was deposed for attempting to mount a coup by dismissing the parliament and ruling by decree. </p>
<p>But he attempted his coup without the support of the armed forces and was rapidly arrested. The appointment of his vice-president, Dina Boluarte, as the new leader <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/timeline-perus-2022-political-crisis">sparked riots</a> that have resulted in the deaths of at least <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/peru-closes-machu-picchu-anti-government-protests-grow-rcna66939">55 people</a>. </p>
<p>Despite leading a mediocre government swamped with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-63225469">accusations of corruption</a>, the fact that Castillo – an indigenous former schoolteacher from an Andean region – was elected at all had significant symbolic value in a country where indigenous people feel excluded. After decades of economic crisis, liberal reforms enacted in the 1990s stabilised the country’s economy, reduced poverty and kept GDP growing. </p>
<p>But these numbers have not been enough to facilitate <a href="https://larepublica.pe/opinion/2021/03/10/clase-media-emergente-o-no-pobres-vulnerables-por-humberto-campodonico/">upward social mobility</a>. Peruvians who cannot afford to go private for their basic needs (healthcare, security, education and housing) are on their own, left to battle underfunded, corrupt and low-quality public services.</p>
<p>Despite his many shortcomings, <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-05/Presentacion%20PRojas%20-%20ultimas%20encuestas_V2_0.pdf">polling suggested</a> that many voters thought Castillo represented change. They felt that someone who really knows how hard life is for indigenous Peruvians would finally sit in the presidential palace. So his removal from office, however justified, was the last straw, driving people into the streets in protest.</p>
<h2>Us and them</h2>
<p>Peru’s (urban, white and westernised) elites remain <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2023/0117/Peru-protests-highlight-rural-urban-divides-and-a-desire-to-belong">unwilling to accept</a> the root causes of this social discontent. Boluarte has already agreed to hold the <a href="https://en.mercopress.com/2022/12/21/peru-s-congress-initially-agrees-to-shorten-presidential-term">next elections in 2024</a> – two years earlier than scheduled. </p>
<p>Beyond that, if disgruntled Andeans wish to improve their situation, <a href="https://twitter.com/SalvadorHeresi/status/1616785586177671172">the elites say</a>, they should vote for better regional governors that are better at taking advantage of the wealth created by the 1990s reforms. Regional poverty, <a href="https://sudaca.pe/noticia/opinion/asamblea-constituyente-no-pasara/">they say</a>, is their fault – not Lima’s or the system’s. Instead, they see the protesters as <a href="https://larepublica.pe/opinion/2023/01/14/hablar-claro-al-pan-pan-y-al-vino-vino/">terrorists</a> that want to impose a communist dictatorship and need to be defeated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly man sites in a chair gesticulating at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505882/original/file-20230123-12-z1u6mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brilliant but controversial: Nobel prize-winning Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Petr Bonek via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This narrative of “us” and “them”, between a “modern Lima” and a “backwards Andes” is popular among Peru’s elites. Take, for example, Nobel prize-winning novelist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2010/vargas_llosa/biographical/">Mario Vargas Llosa</a>. </p>
<p>In 1992, he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/343848?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents">infamously said</a> that the goal of establishing “modern societies, where social and economic differences are reduced to reasonable proportions” was incompatible with the utopia of “preserving the primitive cultures of the Americas”. </p>
<p>Chillingly, he suggests cultural genocide might be the only way to secure Peru’s integration: Indigenous people should, <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1990/12/questions-of-conquest/">he wrote in a 1990 essay in Harper’s magazine</a> “renounce their culture – their language, their beliefs, their traditions and usages – and adopt that of their old masters” in the name of modernity. </p>
<p>Similarly, in 2007, the then president, Alan García, <a href="https://elcomercio.pe/bicentenario/2007-l-el-sindrome-del-perro-del-hortelano-l-bicentenario-noticia/">spoke</a> of the economic potential of Peru’s vast “idle lands”, where “the owner” (the indigenous people) “has no education or economic resources” and therefore “their ownership is only apparent”.</p>
<h2>Terra nullius</h2>
<p>The similarities between these modern Peruvian narratives and those of 19th-century European imperialists talking about the occupation of so-called “<em><a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/recognising-invasions/terra-nullius/">terra nullius</a></em>” in Australia or the <a href="https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/through-the-lens-of-history-biafra-nigeria-the-west-and-the-world/the-colonial-and-pre-colonial-eras-in-nigeria/the-white-mans-burden">white man’s burden</a> in Africa are not coincidental.</p>
<p>Since the 1960s, Aníbal Quijano and other decolonial sociologists have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380601164353?journalCode=rcus20">explored</a> how colonial relations of power have survived Spanish colonialism in the Americas, where a racist and Eurocentric social order is seen as superior to indigenous culture. In essence, the Andes is seen as Lima’s colony: a land rich in natural resources, but inhabited by “native savages” that need to be “civilised” in order for Peru to progress. </p>
<p>It is this problem of enduring colonialism that needs to be addressed – and it cannot be addressed by early elections, by accusing indigenous people of “voting wrong” – and certainly not by murdering them.</p>
<p>And yet the main proposal on the <a href="https://larepublica.pe/politica/2022/05/06/comision-de-constitucion-debate-hoy-proyecto-de-asamblea-constituyente/">negotiation table</a> – a constituent assembly much like the one that recently failed in Chile, but in a country with much less stable political parties – seems unlikely to resolve things. In Chile, proposals to empower Indigenous people by establishing a “<a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/chile-could-become-plurinational-what-does-that-mean/">plurinational state</a>” with reserved Indigenous seats in congress and a more decentralised structure, led voters to overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/opinion/2022/08/12/la-plurinacionalidad-la-constituyente-chilena-y-america-latina/">reject</a> the proposed constitution in defence of “national unity”. </p>
<p>Starting an even more ambitious discussion in a country with a much larger Indigenous population, without putting in the work of letting the population know what the actual plan is, is a recipe for disaster.</p>
<h2>Pandora’s box</h2>
<p>Also, opening the Pandora’s box of a complete overhaul of Peru’s social contract without any guidance as to what the problems are, risks a more authoritarian and conservative constitution. According to recent polling, <a href="https://iep.org.pe/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Informe-IEP-OP-Enero-I-2023-Informe-completo.pdf">72% of Peruvians</a> would support reinstating the death penalty, despite the country’s enormous issues with <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2018/07/14/el-audio-que-indigna-a-peru-un-juez-acuerda-liberar-al-violador-de-una-nina-y-devela-la-corrupcion-en-el-sistema-judicial/">corruption in the judicial branch</a>.</p>
<p>A constituent assembly would probably also bring about <a href="https://iep.org.pe/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Informe-IEP-OP-Enero-I-2023.-Informe-completo-version-final.pdf">increased restrictions</a> for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and trans rights.</p>
<p>There is a third option – a process of “<em><a href="https://participedia.net/method/180">cabildos abiertos</a></em>”, which loosely translates to “open assemblies”. These are a longstanding tradition in Latin America, as a kind of local forum for citizens to voice their concerns. </p>
<p>These would enable indigenous people, who amount to about 25% of the population, to voice their grievances and proposals at length and with nuance, in a public, national, forum. Since this is not a blank slate, but rather builds upon the current constitutional framework, there would be no chance of human rights backsliding.</p>
<p>All voices need to be heard if Peru is going to solve this crisis. A consensus will be needed to create a framework setting out a clear and legitimate mandate for structural and decolonising change. Now is the time for that change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is an associate of AC Transparencia, a democracy watchdog in Peru, and occasionally consults on human rights issues in Peru for Human Rights Watch. </span></em></p>
More than 50 Peruvians have died in rioting as the South America country faces a severe constitutional crisis.
Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg, Departmental Lecturer in International Relations, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/176514
2022-02-07T16:01:12Z
2022-02-07T16:01:12Z
Mountain glaciers may hold less ice than previously thought – here’s what that means for 2 billion downstream water users and sea level rise
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444660/original/file-20220206-27-1x4umu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C44%2C3628%2C2323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mountain glaciers are under threat from global warming.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-taken-on-may-17-mountaineers-make-their-way-news-photo/962297762">Phunjo Lama/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Mountain glaciers are essential water sources for nearly a quarter of the global population. But figuring out just how much ice they hold – and how much water will be available as glaciers shrink in a warming world – has been notoriously difficult.</em></p>
<p><em>In a new study, scientists mapped the speed of over 200,000 glaciers to get closer to an answer. They discovered that widely used estimates of glacier ice volume <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00885-z">may be off by about 20%</a> in terms of how much Earth’s glaciers outside the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could contribute to sea level rise.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/mathieu-morlighem">Mathieu Morlighem</a>, a leader in ice sheet modeling and a coauthor of the study, explains why <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00885-z">the new results</a> hold a warning for regions that rely on glaciers’ seasonal meltwater, but barely register in the big picture of rising seas.</em> </p>
<h2>1) If mountain glaciers hold less ice than previously believed, what does that mean for people who depend on glaciers for water?</h2>
<p>Globally, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-mountain-water-towers-are-melting-putting-1-9-billion-people-at-risk-128501">almost 2 billion people</a> rely on mountain glaciers and snowpack as their main source of drinking water. Many also rely on glacier water for hydropower generation or agriculture, particularly in the dry season. But the vast majority of glaciers around the world are losing more mass than they gain during the year as the climate warms, and they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03436-z">are slowly disappearing</a>. That will <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-2/">profoundly affect these populations</a>.</p>
<p>These communities need to know how long their glaciers will continue to provide water and what to expect as the glaciers disappear so they can prepare.</p>
<p>In most places, we found significantly lower total ice volumes than previous estimates indicated.</p>
<p>In the tropical Andes, from Venezuela to northern Chile, for example, we found that the glaciers have about 23% less ice than previously believed. This means downstream populations have less time to adjust to climate change than they may have planned for. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A herder moves sheep down a road next to a large water pipe with mountains in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444748/original/file-20220207-85126-106wv1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A herder walks beside a water pipe near La Paz, Bolivia. A glacier long relied on for water there is nearly gone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/local-indigenous-sheep-herder-walks-past-a-water-pipe-at-news-photo/523905156">Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even in the Alps, where scientists have a lot of direct ice thickness measurements, we found that the glaciers may have 8% less than previously thought.</p>
<p>The big exception is the Himalayas. We calculated that there may be 37% more ice in these remote mountains than previously estimated. This buys some time for communities that rely on these glaciers, but it does not change the fact that these glaciers are melting with global warming.</p>
<p>Policymakers should look at these new estimates to revise their plans. We do not provide new predictions of the future in this study, but we do provide <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00885-z">a better description</a> of what the glaciers and their water supplies look like today.</p>
<p><iframe id="0Qk4G" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/0Qk4G/13/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2) How do these finding affect estimates of future sea level rise?</h2>
<p>First, it’s important to understand that melting glaciers are only one contributor to sea level rise as the climate warms. About one-third of today’s sea level rise is due to <a href="https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea-level/thermal-expansion">thermal expansion</a> of the ocean – as the ocean warms, water expands and takes up more space. The other two-thirds come from <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level">shrinking mountain glaciers and ice sheets</a>. </p>
<p>We found that if all the glaciers, not including the big ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, were to melt entirely, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00885-z">sea level would rise by about 10 inches</a> instead of 13 inches. This may sound like a large difference, considering the size of the ocean, but you have to put things in perspective. A complete disintegration of the Antarctic ice sheet would contribute <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2749/ramp-up-in-antarctic-ice-loss-speeds-sea-level-rise/">190 feet</a> to sea level and the Greenland ice sheet would contribute <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-greenland-mission-completes-six-years-of-mapping-unknown-terrain">24 feet</a>.</p>
<p>The 3 inches that we are talking about in this study do not call into question current projections of sea level rise.</p>
<h2>3) Why has it been so hard to figure out the ice volume of glaciers, and what did your study do differently?</h2>
<p>You might be surprised by how much is still unknown about some of the basic characteristics of remote mountain glaciers.</p>
<p>Satellites have transformed our understanding of glaciers since the 1970s, and they provide an increasingly clear picture of <a href="https://www.glims.org/RGI/">glacier locations and surface area</a>. But satellites cannot see “through” the ice. In fact, for 99% of the world’s glaciers, there is no direct measurement of ice thickness. Scientists have spent more time mapping the <a href="https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/estimating-glacier-contribution-to-sea-level-rise/">Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets</a> and the terrain below, and we have much more detailed volume measurements there. NASA, for example, dedicated an entire airborne mission, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/mission/index.html">Operation IceBridge</a>, to collect ice thickness measurements in Greenland and Antarctica.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444625/original/file-20220206-501-1ts25eb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new mapping techniques are more precise, as a comparison of Iceland’s Vatnajökull ice cap shows. The image on the left is the new map.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00885-z">R. Millan et al., 2022</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientists have come up with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0300-3">various techniques</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2014RG000470">determine the volume</a> of glaciers, but the uncertainty for remote mountain glaciers has been pretty high.</p>
<p>We did something different compared to previous studies. We used satellite imagery to map the glaciers’ speed. Glacier ice, when it is thick enough, behaves like thick syrup. We can measure how far the ice is moving using two satellite images and map its speed, which goes from a few feet to about 1 mile per year. Mapping the displacement of more than 200,000 glaciers was no easy task, but that created a data set nobody had seen before.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444626/original/file-20220206-17-kwn95c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Images show the velocity of glacier ice in regions around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00885-z">R. Millan et al., 2022</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We used this new information of ice speed and simple principles of ice deformation to determine the thickness of the ice at each pixel of these satellite images. In short, the ice speed we observe from space is due to the ice sliding on its bed and also its internal deformation. The internal deformation depends on its surface slope and ice thickness, and the slipperiness of its bed depends on the temperature of the ice at its base, the presence or absence of liquid water, and the nature of the sediments or rocks underneath. Once we could calibrate a relationship between ice speed and sliding, we could calculate ice thickness.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>To map the flow speed of all of these glaciers, we analyzed 800,000 pairs of images collected by satellites from the European Space Agency and NASA.</p>
<p>Of course, as with any indirect method, they are not perfect estimates and they will be further improved as we collect more data. But we have made a lot of progress in reducing the overall uncertainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathieu Morlighem receives funding from NASA, NASA and the Heising-Simons Foundation.</span></em></p>
Glaciers in North America, Europe and the Andes, in particular, have significantly less ice than people realized.
Mathieu Morlighem, Professor of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157509
2021-04-12T19:18:14Z
2021-04-12T19:18:14Z
Curious Kids: how and when did Mount Everest become the tallest mountain? And will it remain so?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394649/original/file-20210412-15-3zdmdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=97%2C44%2C4895%2C3278&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Most people know that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain but I want to know for how long it has been the tallest, and for how long in the future it will remain so (…) Which range preceded it? (…) When will something else overtake it? — Nigel, age 14, Christchurch</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291898/original/file-20190911-190031-enlxbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p>
<p>Nigel, thank you for this wonderful and insightful question. The answer is actually quite complex, since the height (or <em>elevation</em>) of mountain ranges in the past can be difficult to know. </p>
<p>However, it is a very important question as mountains have a huge role in the environment. They can disturb air flow, affect global and regional climate and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00195">provide opportunities</a> for plants and animals to evolve.</p>
<h2>Understanding the history of mountain ranges</h2>
<p>Geoscientists address questions about ancient mountain heights by looking at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedimentary_basin">sedimentary basins</a> within mountain ranges. These are low areas where <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/sediment/">sediment</a> materials such as pollen and plant leaves collect and minerals form in the soil. </p>
<p>A basin today may be much higher or lower than it was when sediment entered it. The fossilised pollen, leaves and minerals that date back to the time when the sediment was deposited can reveal how the landscape’s elevation changed over time.</p>
<p>If we look at fossilised pollen, we may find it comes from plants which likely grew in a particular range of elevation, and we may also notice the absence of certain other plants. (We can figure out where ancient plants likely grew by looking at their modern relatives.)</p>
<p>So by dating the pollen we find, we can calculate the landscape’s possible range of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1130/G33420.1">elevation in the past</a>. We can conclude the landscape was too high for <em>plant A</em>, high enough for <em>plant B</em> (which gave us the pollen), but not high enough for <em>plant C.</em></p>
<p>That is a pretty powerful capability, especially if the elevation of the landscape has changed significantly since the sediment was first deposited.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393013/original/file-20210401-19-o5h4j2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Podocarp (southern hemisphere conifer) pollen on the left grew in Timor about 2.5 million years ago. A modern relative is shown on the right. These plants grew at elevations greater than 1.2km and are not present in older sediments. Their abrupt appearance in the sediment getting washed off the ancient island tells when parts of the island had grown to at least 1.2km high.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can also look at the different kinds (or <em>isotopes</em>) of certain elements (particularly oxygen) contained in plant waxes, clays and carbonate minerals that form by chemical reactions in the soil. These plants and minerals incorporate rainwater. </p>
<p>As a band of rain reaches a mountain range, water with heavier oxygen isotopes falls out first. This means rainwater at higher elevations contains lighter oxygen isotopes, which then pass into the plants and minerals there.</p>
<p>If we find sediment that was deposited into a low basin 30 million years ago, but is now much higher, it will still contain oxygen isotopes that reveal the elevation at which it first formed. We can measure these isotopes to estimate how much higher the landscape has become.</p>
<h2>How long has Everest been the tallest?</h2>
<p>Everest is part of the Himalayas, a mountain range that stands at the southern edge of the vast Tibetan Plateau which is around 4-5km above sea level. Scientists have used the methods described above to understand the history of the plateau, which evolved as a result <a href="https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/8/1/nwaa091/5829861">of several ancestral mountain ranges joining up</a>. </p>
<p>Parts of the modern plateau were already higher than 3.5km by <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/50/eaba7298.full">26 million years ago</a>. The southernmost of those ranges was a great, Andes-like mountain range called the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14000612">Gangdese mountains</a>. </p>
<p>These seem to have existed for more than 50 million years at elevations similar to those of the Andes today (about 4.5km). </p>
<p>However, south of the Gangdese, where we have today’s highest mountains, geologists found 34.5-million-year-old <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X15000519">sediments from a shallow sea</a> only a few dozen kilometres east of Mount Everest (locally called <a href="https://www.montana.edu/everest/facts/naming.html"><em>Qomolangma</em></a>). </p>
<p>This tells us the part of the Himalayas that includes Everest, which now dominates the skyline, was not a mountain range back then. In fact, it was at sea level. It has grown more than 8km in the last 30 million years.</p>
<p>Everest, now the big kid on the block, is currently more than 100 metres higher than its closest rival. But a new victor will emerge with time. </p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>To understand how Everest might lose its highest mountain status, we need to understand how mountain ranges are built. The largest mountain belts today were built from collisions between blocks of continental crust in Earth’s outer layer, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithosphere">lithosphere</a>.</p>
<p>As these blocks collide, they crumple and slices of rocky crust get stacked on one another, as seen in the right half of the cross section below. This gives birth to high mountains, which continuously rise and shift and change as the collision continues. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="General cross section of lithosphere in the Himalayan Region" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394519/original/file-20210412-19-fdqjji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is a general cross section of lithosphere in the Himalayan region. The lithosphere consists of all of the crust and part of the mantle, down as far as the partially-molten asthenosphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">x</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The video below helps visualise this process. It simulates the squeezing of a block of lithosphere in the Himalayas. You can refer to the “Sandbox Video” part of the cross section above to see where this process would occur.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/528128128" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">University of Melbourne’s School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Science students squeeze layered sediments in a sandbox to see how they will deform.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You’ll notice the mountains begin to rise as soon as the collision begins. The arm pushing the sand represents the already thickened crust of the high Himalayas and the sand pile being pushed represents the Indian upper crust which lies below the mountain range.</p>
<p>The thickening moves to different spots over time. While the youngest and smallest mountain is furthest from the collision itself, the highest peak isn’t always in the oldest part of the range (where the collision began).</p>
<h2>Eroding and growing</h2>
<p>Large mountain ranges “erode” when changes in temperature, wind and water break down the rock and ultimately carry it away. Interestingly, erosion actually causes mountains to slowly grow over time. </p>
<p>This is a fascinating process geoscientists call “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy">isostasy</a>” which can be measured using GPS. The diagram below shows how the process is comparable to blocks of wood floating in water. </p>
<p>If intact blocks of a certain type of wood float in a pool, the same percentage of the overall volume will always protrude above the surface. So, if material is removed from one block, that block will rise. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394520/original/file-20210412-19-bbk457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This diagram shows how erosion of mountains — akin to cutting slots in blocks of wood — causes mountain peaks to increase in elevation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">x</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can compare these columns of wood to lithospheric blocks. As more erosion occurs, the mountain’s surface increases in elevation. This gives a way for deeply buried rocks to rise within the mountain range. </p>
<h2>Hard to beat</h2>
<p>Despite having 82,350km of <a href="http://rses.anu.edu.au/%7Enick/papers/tecto2010b.pdf">convergent boundaries on Earth</a> (where two plates meet and push together), it’s unlikely other mountain ranges will surpass the height of the Himalayas anytime soon.</p>
<p>This is because the Himalayas were built by the collision of two large continents composed of rocks with lower than average density. They therefore sit higher than the oceanic lithosphere. </p>
<p>One day in the distant future a new boundary will form somewhere and the forces creating the Himalayas will be removed. </p>
<p>The range will then collapse and eventually erode to become like the modern-day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleghanian_orogeny">Appalachians</a> in North America, which was an active mountain belt from between 325 and 260 million years ago. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-mountains-form-108246">Curious Kids: how do mountains form?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:</em></p>
<p><em>* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au <br>
* Tell us on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">Twitter</a> by tagging <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">@ConversationEDU</a> with the hashtag #curiouskids, or <br>
* Tell us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a></em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Everest didn’t become the highest mountain overnight. This process was excruciatingly slow; a result of complex interactions between the solid earth, the atmosphere and the biosphere.
Brendan Duffy, Fellow in Structural Geology and Tectonics, The University of Melbourne
Sandra McLaren, Associate professor, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/152058
2021-01-04T17:07:21Z
2021-01-04T17:07:21Z
The recent appearance of unexplained monoliths offers connections to the ancient past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375540/original/file-20201216-19-b7egs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C17%2C5955%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The head of a monumental stone statue from Tiwanaku, Bolivia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November, news outlets reported the puzzling appearance of several peculiar, highly polished <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/monoliths-around-the-world-2020-b1770335.html">metal monoliths in remote landscapes</a> around the world. </p>
<p>Some, naturally, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/15/monoliths-crop-circles-does-hint-alien-communication-still-prove/">blamed aliens</a>. Others saw similarities with Stanley Kubrick’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/11/25/monolith-how-utahs-compares-monolith-movie-2001/6420968002/">iconic metal monolith of <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em></a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Dsw8XBBjSA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Global News report on the appearance and disappearance of monoliths.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As archeologists, we watched these events with some amusement. Imposing, isolated standing stones have been important in many historical cultures of the world, from <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5953/">Mongolia</a> to the British Isles. </p>
<p>Our expertise lies in the monoliths of the South American Andes: monumental, human-like figures carved of single blocks of stone that are remarkable not only in their form and style, but also <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=_ztsDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA293&dq=roddick%20janusek%20home%20powerful%20landscapes&pg=PA287#v=onepage&q&f=false">in the stories they tell</a>. </p>
<h2>The archeology of Bolivia’s monoliths</h2>
<p>The monoliths of highland Bolivia served as the focal point of public religious rituals as far back as 800 BCE and have remained a source of fascination ever since. When Inca armies conquered this area in the 15th century, they saw them as leftovers from <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/urtinp">the world’s creation</a>. </p>
<p>In the 16th century, the next set of invaders — Spanish conquistadors — were told that they were <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=eWmRDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA3&dq=tiwanaku%20spanish%20monoliths%20giants&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false">the work of giants</a>. Over the next centuries, they were dynamited to build railroads, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_55">stolen by foreign collectors</a> and even used as <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=9aYNPBodILIC&lpg=PA296&dq=tiwanaku%20target%20practice&pg=PA296#v=onepage&q&f=false">target practice by the Bolivian army</a>.</p>
<p>Since the early 20th century, however, a number of new monoliths have come to light during excavations by Bolivian and foreign archeologists, and by local residents during the course of everyday activities such as farming fields and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00776297.2020.1830974">building houses</a>. Many dating to over 2,000 years ago, some <a href="https://static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20160927065214384-0955:S0003598X14000325:S0003598X14000325_fig11g.jpeg">quite elaborately carved</a>, have been found <a href="http://dig.ucla.edu/node/1941">throughout the region</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man in a pit standing next to a monolith" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375458/original/file-20201216-19-17ntt1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This red sandstone monolith dates to the 7th century BCE, but was poking its head out of the soil before being excavated from a hilltop in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Taraco Archaeology Project)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The best known monoliths are those of the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/567/">UNESCO site of Tiwanaku</a> in Bolivia, a place that was famous in its heyday (400-1000) for attracting pilgrims from across the Andes despite its lung-crushing setting at 3,800 metres above sea level. Many of these volcanic stone monoliths are intricately carved. The largest of these, the Bennett Monolith — <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1878905.stm">recently returned to its original site</a> — stands a staggering seven metres high. Other smaller monoliths are found scattered around the site, but also in house patios in the modern town. </p>
<h2>Animate stones</h2>
<p>The opportunity to interact with monoliths may have been the main attraction of Tiwanaku for its religious devotees. For many Indigenous Peoples of the Andes, stones and mountains are understood as <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-culture-of-stone">powerful beings</a> that can intervene in human lives. </p>
<p>And like the mysterious metal monoliths, the importance of the monoliths is associated with their natural environments. <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780884024156">Chemical analyses</a> confirm that the stone for Tiwanaku monoliths comes from mountains that the Aymara people see as sacred, living beings with distinct personalities. In the past, devotees likely sought to interact with these beings in their form as monoliths under altered states of consciousness through drugs, alcohol or musically induced trance. </p>
<p>The principal monoliths of Tiwanaku hold in one hand a drinking vessel — similar to a modern pilsner glass — and in the other <a href="http://dig.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/visual/sais/11.1.jpg">a flat tablet</a> for inhaling hallucinogenic snuff. Archeologists have found both types of artifacts, and even <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/ancient-bolivian-ritual-kit-contains-traces-of-hallucinogens/">psychotropic drugs</a>, at Tiwanaku and other sites in Bolivia, Chile and Peru.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An intricately carved monolith of a person holding an item in each hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375462/original/file-20201216-13-1etvzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ponce monolith presenting a drinking vessel (right) and a snuff tablet (left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(John W. Janusek). Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/ap3a.2004.14.175">Tiwanaku’s government collapsed</a> around 1000, monoliths appear to have borne the brunt of people’s anger. Many were <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=9aYNPBodILIC&lpg=PA3&vq=defaced&pg=PA297#v=onepage&q&f=false">decapitated, defaced or broken apart</a>. One broken monolith was united in the late 1970s with its other half: the 998-kilogram upper portion was found 220 kilometres away, across Lake Titicaca, and identified <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27977708">via microscopic analysis</a>. Other monoliths survived, only to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00776297.2020.1830974">suffer under later Spanish invaders</a>, who pried off gold plating and, in some cases, inscribed them with crosses and dates, and ceremoniously buried them.</p>
<p>For many Bolivian Aymara, stone monoliths continue to live in the present. Current residents of the town near Tiwanaku have told our collaborators of monoliths coming to life at night, wandering the streets. In 2006, Evo Morales — Bolivia’s first Indigenous president — was sworn in at Tiwanaku under <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5167202">the watchful eye of the Ponce Monolith</a>. </p>
<h2>Monoliths for this century</h2>
<p>Elsewhere, new monoliths are still being born. </p>
<p>In 2007, <a href="https://www.hoybolivia.com/Noticia.php?IdNoticia=146472">sculptor Ruben Herrera</a> signed a contract with the municipality of Guaqui to chisel a replica of the Bennett Monolith. He extracted a 20-tonne rock from a nearby hill using traditional techniques. Despite working for 20 months, he was never paid. The monolith remains in its place of production, but is now incorporated into a property wall. </p>
<p>Villagers told the press that Herrera had a sickness caused by the stone entering his body, and he could only be healed by local shamans (or yatiris). Today, people place candles and flowers at the foot of the replica, and yatiris pour grain alcohol on his work. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A carved monolith lies on its back and forms part of a wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375463/original/file-20201216-15-1h1824g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A replica of the famous Bennett Monolith now sits in a house wall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Andrew Roddick) Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our current moment, we are becoming ever more reliant on new and remote technologies. It seems incredible that we still find ourselves entranced by monoliths of metal and stone and the qualities of objects that seem to emerge magically out of the earth. </p>
<p>As archeologists, however, we don’t find this mystifying at all. Artifacts and art like the animate Andean monoliths possess an extraordinary power to capture our attention even as civilizations rise and fall, and remind us of our connections to the places we inhabit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Guengerich currently receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Roddick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Polished metal monoliths recently appeared in remote locations around the world. In some ways, they’re not unusual — standing stones have been important in many historical cultures of the world.
Andrew Roddick, Associate Professor of Anthropology, McMaster University
Anna Guengerich, Assistant professor, Eckerd College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138790
2020-12-18T13:24:11Z
2020-12-18T13:24:11Z
Llamas are having a moment in the US, but they’ve been icons in South America for millennia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375502/original/file-20201216-17-1u06ww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5705%2C3800&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Llamas In a pen, Pasajes, Tarija, Bolivia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/llamas-in-a-pen-pasajes-tarija-bolivia-news-photo/558032007?adppopup=true">Insights/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With their long eyelashes, banana-shaped ears, upturned mouths and stocky bodies covered with curly wool, llamas look like creatures that walked out of a Dr. Seuss story. And now they’re celebrities in the U.S. </p>
<p>Because of their gentle and docile demeanor, llamas are often favorites at petting zoos. They appear at festivals and weddings and have even been deployed as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/11/15/therapy-llamas-are-coming-portland-hotel-holidays-because-portland/">therapy animals</a>.</p>
<p>Llamas have also made medical news in 2020. Their immune systems produce <a href="https://www.pittwire.pitt.edu/news/llama-nanobodies-could-be-powerful-weapon-against-covid-19">nanobodies</a> – tiny antibody fragments much smaller than human antibodies – that have potential as <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/11/scientists-create-potent-anti-coronavirus-nanobody-inspired-by-llamas/">COVID-19 treatments</a>. Scientists are also testing synthetic versions of llama nanobodies as technologies for treating diseases such as <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201207131303.htm">cystic fibrosis</a>.</p>
<p>But there’s much more to know about these engaging animals. In my work as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emily_Wakild">historian of Latin America</a>, I’ve studied their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz939">long relationship with humans</a> in their Andean mountain homelands. These interactions have shaped everything about llamas, from the length and color of their wool to their dispositions and reproductive habits. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1326928261193076738"}"></div></p>
<h2>A camel lineage</h2>
<p>Llamas are the descendants of animals known as wild <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/11186/18540211">guanaco</a>, which were domesticated in South America around 4500 B.C. Llamas and guanaco are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-018-0120-z">two of four</a> South American members of the <a href="https://rdcu.be/caU04">camel family</a>. The others are the <a href="http://www.conopa.org/publicaciones/the_questions_alpaca_origins.php">alpaca</a> and the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22956/145360542">vicuña</a>, a wild species renowned for its soft wool. </p>
<p>Breeders regularly pair female llamas with male alpacas to create offspring endowed with fine, valuable alpaca wool. Male llamas are bred with female alpacas to increase the wool’s weight. </p>
<p>These animals were important to the economy of the Incan Empire, which flourished in Peru from <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Inca_Civilization/#:%7E:text=The%20Inca%20civilization%20flourished%20in,the%20world%20at%20that%20time.">about A.D. 1400 to 1533</a>. Incas used their wool to make fabric, which doubled as a form of currency. The animals also provided meat and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-inca-empire-engineered-road-would-endure-centuries-180955709/">carried goods</a> over some 25,000 miles of Inca roads. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Small gold llama figurine, Inca, about AD 1500." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375506/original/file-20201216-15-tnaf3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miniature gold llama figurine, Peru, Inca, about A.D. 1500, British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Miniature_gold_llama_figurine.jpg">BabelStone/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the Incas didn’t view llamas and their kin just as livestock. Rather, they were deeply woven into the region’s culture and spiritual beliefs. Incas and pre-Incas <a href="https://wwwtest.uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0709.htm">sacrificed llamas and alpacas</a> in religious ceremonies to promote fertility in their herds. They served the animals’ meat at <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/972232">state-sponsored celebrations</a> to honor rain gods. And they <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/inka-llama-offerings-from-tambo-viejo-acari-valley-peru/877DCB73D4D804EFA2574443188A79C1">sacrificed and buried</a> these creatures on newly conquered lands to legitimize Inca presence. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<h2>The finest wool</h2>
<p>Archaeologists have <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/secrets-of-the-alpaca-mummies">unearthed mummified alpacas and llamas</a> in Peru that were more than a thousand years old. The animals had been sacrificed and buried with beads, wool and silver pieces. </p>
<p>Analysis of these perfectly preserved specimens revealed their handlers’ masterful selective breeding techniques. These animals had soft, wispy, quickly growing wool – finer than today’s best cashmere. So what happened to the genes that produced such high-quality wool? </p>
<p>They disappeared. </p>
<p>After the Spanish took control of the Inca empire in the 1540s, Spanish rulers viewed llamas and alpacas as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/llamas.html">beasts of burden or sources of meat</a>. Many of the animals died from diseases introduced by the Spaniards’ imported sheep and cattle. It took nearly 300 years for Peruvians to achieve independence, and longer for indigenous Andean peoples’ population and traditional husbandry practices to resume. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369475/original/file-20201116-23-eyce7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigenous people still adorn their llamas, a tradition that dates back millennia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tydence/27331924550/in/photolist-HDefWs-6as3Dj-6hwYce-7S8V8Y-dtvatQ-7AXR6R-6gNdk3-8zEQ9F-w7F7XS-kZbM2-HkqbZ-2cxHb7W-5cGTur-stRQN-775zbd-8GXab-4viMWD-oPEsPg-jdAGY2-znvMt-7psAH-dy6jGp-cUgsTq-7FVs9-77cRHA-5MGER6-pMk95V-oPFdou-djCF9f-9TiSBo-9CFFYT-dybSW5-8KYnFy-cUdSPh-HS1bZV-5tRBoV-85WCLe-yCP6H5-L7iG1-pwvrHC-5MwxYM-FRPWa3-is71Yo-5YMiCZ-5cGUEK-q63H4d-7B6N6H-j4BXuS-5cMc27-83nBUz">Tydence Davis/Flicker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Llama dressing</h2>
<p>Today it’s not unusual to see llamas dressed in colorful costumes in public squares in Andean towns. This is a longstanding cultural tradition, symbolizing power, respect and reverence among <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2016/11/22/cuanto-conoces-a-los-indigenas-de-america-latina">indigenous people</a>, especially in Bolivia and Peru. For example, the <a href="http://www.myperu.org/traditional_dances_qhapaq_qolla.html">Qhapaq Qolla dance</a>, celebrated each July in Paucartambo, Peru, recognizes llamas and their herders as powerful parts of an Andean “cosmovision,” or understanding of the universe.</p>
<p>Andean cultures possess a <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/earth-beings">holistic worldview</a> that encompasses humans, plants, animals, the land, rivers, mountains, rain, snow and, of course, llamas. Many Andeans associate animals with supernatural beings. Herders in Peru’s Ayacucho region believe that their llama and alpaca flocks do not belong to them – they’re the property of the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315418537">wamani</a>” – spirits that reside within waters or mountain peaks. </p>
<p>They believe that llamas act as an essential conduit between people and the wamani, and herders maintain that connection through ritual obligations that often involve the animals. They may adorn llamas, dress up the animals or “marry” llamas to each other on a wedding bed. Docile animals that cooperate in these ceremonies are kept around, reproducing longer and creating future generations with easygoing temperaments.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BagzzcbmXQw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Llamas are an integral part of the yearly Qhapaq Qolla dance in Peru.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘modern’ llama</h2>
<p>Llamas <a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780237381">first arrived</a> in the U.S. in the 19th century, imported for zoos and menageries. In 1914 the mayor of Buenos Aires famously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1914/03/16/archives/llama-for-bryan-ordered-deported-with-five-others-from-argentina-it.html">gave one to then-Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan</a>, though it wasn’t allowed into the country because it was infected with foot and mouth disease. </p>
<p>By the 1980s llamas had become staple attractions at petting zoos, fairs, dude ranches and private parties. Ranchers bought them to chase coyotes away from their sheep. Back-country guides loaded llamas onto jet boats and herded them into Cessnas for “<a href="https://wildernessridgetrailllamas.com/">llama packing</a>” adventures and hunting excursions.</p>
<p>Investors who bought llamas and alpacas as livestock didn’t fare so well, as there wasn’t much of a U.S. market for their milk or wool. Lobbyists managed to help the industry in the early 2000s by including alpacas in Section 179 deductions intended to grow small businesses. These measures, which were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/12/a-u-s-senator-is-in-a-showdown-with-people-who-own-alpacas/">extended in 2010 and remain in force</a>, treat the purchase of alpacas like tractors or other new equipment. </p>
<p>Regardless of these incentives and llamas’ cultural popularity, llama ownership in the U.S. has <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/llamas-disappearing-across-united-states-n994181">declined</a> from nearly 145,000 animals in 2002 to under 40,000 in 2017. While llamas and alpacas can be found in every state, their populations are largely concentrated in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/27/why-there-are-so-many-llamas-in-the-united-states/">Arizona and the Pacific Northwest</a>. </p>
<p>Andean cultures have long fostered relationships of reciprocity between humans and other animals. As medical findings about llama nanobodies suggest, that outlook may be wiser than indigenous South Americans could likely have imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138790/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Wakild has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright foundation. </span></em></p>
Llama toys, therapy lamas, petting zoo llamas: llamas are hot in the US, surpassing unicorns in popularity, but their relationship with South American people stretches over 7,000 years.
Emily Wakild, Professor of History and Director, Environmental Studies Program, Boise State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140811
2020-09-27T16:13:16Z
2020-09-27T16:13:16Z
Quinoa is a beacon of hope for the Andean communities in a time of global crisis
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353383/original/file-20200818-20-kul4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C193%2C4608%2C2973&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wuilber Machaca, a quinoa farmer who lives in the Aymara community of Huancarani in Peru's Puno region.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been 7,000 years since indigenous rural communities of the Andes first grew quinoa. Among these deserted highlands, recognised by the United Nations as “globally important ingenious agricultural heritage systems” (<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a186/84ddd027c429798cf60693d926b7177acce9.pdf">GIAHS</a>), farmers have always faced drought, frost and the difficulties of intense solar radiation. In the context of the ongoing climate and pandemic crises, traditional crops such as quinoa now have an even more fundamental role to play in preserving the local biodiversity heritage. </p>
<h2>Economic miracle or mirage?</h2>
<p>Over the last 40 years, Peru has experienced a quinoa boom, marked by the announcement of the <a href="http://www.fao.org/quinoa-2013/mobile/home/en/">“International Year of Quinoa”</a> in 2013 by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Its perceived qualities as a “superfood” (rich in compounds considered beneficial to a person’s health) led it to cross the oceans and land on European and North American tables, swelling demand for a product of which Peru is the world’s leading producer.</p>
<p>As result, the price of quinoa rose from 3 dollars per kilogram in 2012 to more 5 dollars in 2014. Between 2012 and 2014 the land dedicated to quinoa cultivation in Peru nearly doubled, rising from 35,000 hectares to more than 65,000. In 2014, however, the price collapsed, returning to 2012 levels. Quinoa is still an important commodity in Peru for both the local and global market, helping farmers to diversify their income and have a side role in household consumption. Peru leads the quinoa export from the Andean country accounting for 60% of the global trade in 2018 (Figure 1).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Quinoa market price and land use in Peru from 2008 to 2018" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353388/original/file-20200818-16-1g3cohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FAO STAT 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The quinoa boom profoundly changed the country’s agricultural system, giving rise to large producers in lower elevation areas and on the coast. There, agriculture is mechanised, practices are more intensive, the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers is more widespread and the supply of cheap labour is more abundant. </p>
<p>To cash in on the global boom, other countries are now trying to grow their own quinoa – even China is working to become a player, with agricultural policies that in recent years have encouraged the cultivation of more nutritional and diversified foods such as quinoa. The new producers of quinoa creating a fierce competition against which Peru’s small-scale farmers struggle. </p>
<h2>Traditional varieties on the decline</h2>
<p>Before the quinoa boom, black and yellow quinoa were also produced in the Andes, but these traditional varieties have small grains. The global demand for large grains and white quinoa brought them to the forefront, and many farmers abandoned traditional varieties. In Peru’s Puno region, one of the centres of quinoa production in the Andes, farmers today tend to prefer improved varieties over <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3735">traditional ones</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to having larger, white grains that are popular with consumers, newer varieties resist mildew, mature faster and have lower levels of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-saponins-in-quinoa-toxic/">saponin</a>. Farmers who prefer traditional varieties tend to have smaller farms. Rather than focusing on large-scale production and export, their primary concern is often their own food security, a crucial problem during the <a href="https://www.quinoasymposium.com/hilda-beatriz-manzano-chura-photo-essay">pandemic crisis</a>.</p>
<h2>Food security in time of crisis</h2>
<p>As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, many of the students and young workers living in Lima who were originally from the Puno Region returned to their home villages. Here they rejoined their families and helped them with the farming activities, mainly quinoa harvesting. After March 15, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Peru">Peru’s nationwide lockdown</a> prevented farmers from travelling to towns, making it impossible for them to sell their production. Some abandoned the large-scale harvests and produced only what was necessary for the family to be self-sufficient. The distance from markets featuring foods promoted by <a href="http://andrewwstevens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Quinoa.pdf">globalisation</a> – pasta and rice – brought back an interest in local recipes with potatoes and traditional varieties of quinoa.</p>
<p>For the farmer Wuilber Machaca, who lives with his family in the Aymara community of Huancarani in the Puno region, quinoa represents a beacon of hope. At the <a href="https://www.quinoasymposium.com/english-program">International Quinoa Research Symposium</a> organized by Washington State University’s Sustainable Seed Systems Lab and Food Systems Program, held August 17-19 in Seattle. “Global demand made us abandon many native varieties”, Machaca said. The potential of selling internationally pushed farmers toward variants that were more productive and pleasing to consumers, but that required intensive farming. Today, however, the ability of traditional varieties to grow in scarce water conditions enables them to better withstand climate change. This advantage provides small farmers with food security and also respect the role of the community in maintaining traditional varieties.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-written by Lorenzo Pirovano, a freelance data and investigative journalist.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Federico Andreotti ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
As the twin crises of climate change and Covid-19 continue to unfold, a traditional crop can help South American communities preserve biodiversity and their heritage.
Federico Andreotti, PhD candidate in Agroecology, Université de Montpellier
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126998
2019-12-05T12:39:18Z
2019-12-05T12:39:18Z
Bolivia after Morales: An ‘ungovernable country’ with a power vacuum
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305263/original/file-20191204-70155-hdjvii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5472%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A supporter of former Bolivian president Evo Morales tells a police officer to respect the nation's indigenous people, in La Paz, Bolivia, Nov. 12, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Bolivia-Protests/5ae96e714ec94682b7bbd9bba640d028/57/0">AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Evo Morales is hardly Bolivia’s first president to be ousted in a mass uprising. </p>
<p>Both of his immediate predecessors – <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25676070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2005.tb00319.x">Carlos Mesa</a> – resigned after waves of mass protest. So did at least <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/212465/summary">seven other Bolivian presidents</a> since 1870. </p>
<p>The power of the Bolivian people is so formidable that former president Mesa, upon resigning in 2005, declared the country “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2005.tb00319.x">ungovernable</a>.” </p>
<p>Bolivia’s new interim president, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/bolivia-president-jeanine-anez-cabinet-indigenous">Jeanine Añez</a>, may well echo the sentiment. Deadly protests have gripped Bolivia since she took power on Nov. 11, and Morales’ socialist party, MAS, retains a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/bolivia-caught-in-a-power-struggle-between-anez-at-home-and-morales-in-exile">two-thirds majority</a> in both the lower and upper houses of Congress. </p>
<p>Añez, a former senator from Bolivia’s weak opposition, has virtually no power. Her party stands little chance of passing legislation. And <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/11/29/actualidad/1575039515_623830.html">protests against her government</a> continue.</p>
<h2>Power to the people</h2>
<p>Throughout Bolivian history, protests have been an important way indigenous people and rural peasants, long excluded from the halls of power, have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498543569/Fragile-States-in-the-Americas">made their voices heard</a>. </p>
<p>Whether to force more equitable land distribution in the 1952 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1557-203X.2011.01110.x">Bolivian National Revolution</a>, demand the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/01/landlocked-bolivias-request-for-chile-to-grant-ocean-access-rejected-by-un">return of the coastal province</a> conquered by Chile in 1883 or call for the <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/whith18&div=17&id=&page=">nationalization of resources such as oil and gas</a>, these marginalized communities have often earned major concessions via protest. </p>
<p>As I have argued in my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sais.2007.0001">political analyses of the South American country</a>, Bolivian government institutions are so weak that effective governance requires at the least some populist compromise. </p>
<p>Indigenous Bolivians organize massive marches, <a href="https://eldeber.com.bo/156899_cocaleros-piden-renuncia-de-jeanine-anez-y-amenazan-con-bloqueo-indefinido-de-carreteras">blocking roads into major urban centers</a> to prevent food and fuel from entering and <a href="https://time.com/5727991/clashes-bolivia/">exploding dynamite</a> to highlight their dismay. By paralyzing cities, including the seat of government, these indigenous protest strategies have effectively overwhelmed numerous Bolivian governments.</p>
<p>That’s how <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/brownjwa23&div=10&id=&page=">Morales himself rose to power</a>: He was the highly visible leader of the 2003 and 2005 protests that ousted his immediate predecessors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305265/original/file-20191204-70116-12hbn5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A roadblock on a freeway into the Bolivian capital of La Paz was part of weeks-long protests against President Carlos Mesa, June 3, 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Bolivia-BOL-/dc0d69a228e1da11af9f0014c2589dfb/102/0">AP Photo/Juan Karita</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A military mutiny</h2>
<p>The shocked tone of Morales’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkQxs6nMHAI">last press conference as president</a>, held on Nov. 10, made clear his outrage at <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191117-la-paz-is-a-city-under-siege-bolivia-s-capital-struggles-as-food-runs-out-1">being on the receiving end</a> of a similar mass mobilization.</p>
<p>Morales was forced to resign amid protest after he <a href="http://www.startribune.com/the-latest-morales-leads-bolivia-vote-but-runoff-likely/563515732/">declared victory</a> in Bolivia’s contested Oct. 20 presidential election. Few doubt that he won the race, however. What was in dispute is whether he won by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-election-idUSKBN1X31M4">a margin of 10%</a> – enough to avoid a runoff with his closest competitor, <a href="https://theglobalamericans.org/2019/07/an-interview-with-former-bolivian-president-and-current-presidential-candidate-carlos-mesa/">the former president Carlos Mesa</a>, who 12 years ago resigned amid protests.</p>
<p>Morales and his most ardent supporters said he beat Mesa by just over 10%. Opposition parties, their supporters and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/bolivia-morales-calls-elections-oas-audit-191110110329121.html">Organization of American States</a> found the narrow margin suspicious and called for a new vote.</p>
<p>Morales eventually agreed amid wild protest, but not before a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-election-ticktock-insight-idUSKBN1XO2PQ">police mutiny</a> encouraged <a href="http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2019/11/10/bolivia-queman-la-casa-de-la-hermana-del-presidente-esther-morales-en-oruro/">violence</a> against <a href="http://www.la-razon.com/ciudades/seguridad_ciudadana/Bolivia-oruro-renuncia-alcalde-quema-casa_0_3254674555.html">his political allies</a>. The military announced that it <a href="https://www.eltribuno.com/jujuy/nota/2019-11-9-19-50-0-fuerzas-armadas-se-pronuncian-sobre-la-crisis-y-anuncian-que-nunca-se-enfrentaran-con-el-pueblo">would not use force</a> to subdue anti-Morales protesters. Soldiers looked on as demonstrators <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bolivia-latest-evo-morales-resignation-coup-la-paz-protest-military-fire-house-a9198211.html">looted</a> and <a href="https://correodelsur.com/local/20191110_gobernador-de-chuquisaca-anuncia-su-renuncia-al-cargo.html">burned</a> to the <a href="https://www.eldeber.com.bo/156441_vandalos-rondan-en-rodados-de-la-policia-hay-zozobra-en-yapacani">ground</a> the houses of some MAS party members. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the police and military compelled Morales to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/11/10/world/americas/10reuters-bolivia-election-military-stability.html">resign</a>. It was clear he had lost control. </p>
<h2>Complete paralysis</h2>
<p>Yet Morales opponents weren’t necessarily eager to see Carlos Mesa, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/14/how-evo-morales-running-again-again-undermines-bolivias-democracy/">still commands very little devotion</a>, elected president. They just wanted Morales out. And though Morales’ base <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2013.808495">has frayed somewhat</a> over 14 years due to his government’s pursuit of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642987.2016.1179869">natural gas development in indigenous areas</a>, he remains by far the most popular politician in Bolivia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305264/original/file-20191204-70167-1wr8nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evo Morales went into exile in Mexico after he was forced by police and the military to resign on Nov. 10.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/The-Week-That-Was-in-Latin-America-Photo-Gallery/6134495460d041c19e0784649d1eb1b0/1/0">AP Photo/Marco Ugarte</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Morales is now <a href="https://twitter.com/evoespueblo">leading by tweet</a> from exile in Mexico, urging his supporters to wage their own mutiny against the new interim government and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/bolivia-evo-morales-finish-term-191117051645116.html">hinting at his return</a>.</p>
<p>“[T]he struggle continues,” he wrote in <a href="https://twitter.com/evoespueblo/status/1195522207868432386">a Nov. 15 tweet</a> that painted Bolivia’s history as a fight between indigenous people and the powers that would oppress them. “I will return and I will be millions.” </p>
<p>Massive protests have virtually paralyzed Bolivia, as <a href="https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/mundo/2019/11/17/largas-filas-en-bolivia-por-comida-y-gasolina-por-bloqueos-carreteros-4672.html">indigenous roadblocks</a> keep food and fuel from La Paz and angry protesters attempt to march on the presidential palace itself. The city of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/16/bolivia-protests-five-killed-in-rally-calling-for-exiled-moraless-return">Cochabamba</a> and its surroundings are also rocked by violent protest. Thus far, Bolivian military and police have <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bolivia-crisis-evo-morales-deaths-protests-jeanine-anez-united-nations-a9206266.html">shot dead</a> at least <a href="https://www.france24.com/es/20191116-bachelet-advierte-que-la-situaci%C3%B3n-en-bolivia-puede-salirse-de-control">14 people</a>.</p>
<h2>Ungovernable country</h2>
<p>While the new government has the support of both the Bolivian military and the police, this does not make the country governable. </p>
<p>Añez, ruling without a mandate, has only one real responsibility: to <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/11/20/actualidad/1574261743_294861.html">organize elections</a>. The Congress has now voted on a plan to hold another presidential vote, although no date has been set, and Morales has agreed he will not be a candidate.</p>
<p>Setting new elections without Morales is a win for the opposition in Bolivia and a fundamental step toward restoring a semblance of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/23/bolivia--slides-into-chaos-mountain-barricades-city-protests-morales">normalcy</a>. </p>
<p>But Morales’ base is unlikely to simply accept the results, whatever they may be.</p>
<p>To paraphrase the Bolivian historian Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, the indigenous Bolivians who adore Morales are “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/oppressed-but-not-defeated-peasant-struggles-among-the-aymara-and-qhechwa-in-bolivia-1900-1980/oclc/16518379">oppressed but not defeated</a>.” </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marten W. Brienen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Evo Morales is at least the ninth Bolivian president to by forced out of office by a mass uprising. But even in exile he remains by far the most popular politician in the country.
Marten W. Brienen, Lecturer in Global Studies, Oklahoma State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128023
2019-11-28T16:28:36Z
2019-11-28T16:28:36Z
Amazon fires are causing glaciers in the Andes to melt even faster
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304292/original/file-20191128-178089-1dwq01a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C31%2C4236%2C2790&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">3523studio / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but the past 11 months saw the number of fires <a href="http://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/queimadas/portal-static/situacao-atual/">increase by more than 70%</a> when compared with 2018, indicating a major acceleration in land clearing by the country’s logging and farming industries. </p>
<p>The smoke from the fires rose high into the atmosphere and could be seen from space. Some regions of Brazil became covered in thick smoke that closed airports and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2019/08/near-Amazon-fires-residents-are-sick-worried-and-angry">darkened city skies</a>.</p>
<p>As the rainforest burns, it releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and larger particles of so-called “black carbon” (<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008RG000280">smoke and soot</a>). The phrase “enormous amounts” hardly does the numbers justice – in any given year, the burning of forests and grasslands in South America emits a whopping <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jgrd.50171">800,000 tonnes of black carbon</a> into the atmosphere. </p>
<p>This truly astounding amount is almost double the black carbon produced by all combined energy use in Europe over 12 months. Not only does this absurd amount of smoke cause <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412005002461">health issues</a> and contribute to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo156">global warming</a> but, as a growing number of scientific studies are showing, it also more directly contributes to the melting of glaciers.</p>
<p>In a new paper published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53284-1">Scientific Reports</a>, a team of researchers has outlined how smoke from fires in the Amazon in 2010 made glaciers in the Andes melt more quickly. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304283/original/file-20191128-178078-1lkj9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South America: the Andes mountains run along the western edge of the Amazon basin (centre).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AridOcean / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When fires in the Amazon emit black carbon during the peak burning season (August to October), winds carry these clouds of smoke to Andean glaciers, which can sit higher than 5,000 metres above sea level. </p>
<p>Despite being invisible to the naked eye, black carbon particles affect the ability of the snow to reflect incoming sunlight, a phenomenon known as “albedo”. Similar to how a dark-coloured car will heat up more quickly in direct sunlight when compared with a light-coloured one, glaciers covered by black carbon particles will absorb more heat, and thus melt faster.</p>
<p>By using a computer simulation of how particles move through the atmosphere, known as <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00110.1">HYSPLIT</a>, the team was able to show that smoke plumes from the Amazon are carried by winds to the Andes, where they fall as an invisible mist across glaciers. Altogether, they found that fires in the Amazon in 2010 caused a 4.5% increase in water runoff from Zongo Glacier in Bolivia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304295/original/file-20191128-178066-1uultlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Zongo glacier is found on the slopes of Huayna Potosi, one of Bolivia’s highest mountains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan Michael Wilson / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crucially, the authors also found that the effect of black carbon depends on the amount of dust covering a glacier – if the amount of dust is higher, then the glacier will already be absorbing most of the heat that might have been absorbed by the black carbon. Land clearing is one of the reasons that dust levels over South America <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/104/14/5743.short">doubled</a> during the 20th century.</p>
<p>Glaciers are some of the most important natural resources on the planet. Himalayan glaciers provide drinking water for 240m people, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-92288-1">1.9 billion rely on them for food</a>. In South America, glaciers are crucial for water supply – in some towns, including Huaraz in Peru, <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000265810">more than 85% of drinking water comes from glaciers during times of drought</a>. However, these truly vital sources of water are increasingly under threat as the planet feels the effects of global warming. Glaciers in the Andes have been <a href="https://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/81/2013/">receding</a> rapidly for the last 50 years.</p>
<p>The tropical belt of South America is predicted to become <a href="https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/13337/2014/acp-14-13337-2014.html">more dry and arid</a> as the climate changes. A drier climate means more dust, and <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190910154657.htm">more fires</a>. It also means more droughts, which make towns more reliant on glaciers for water. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, as the above study shows, the fires assisted by dry conditions help to make these vital sources of water vanish more quickly. The role of black carbon in glacier melting is an exceedingly complex process – currently, the climate models used to <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014WR016728">predict the future melting of glaciers in the Andes</a> do not incorporate black carbon. As the authors of this new study show, this is likely causing the rate of glacial melt to be underestimated in many current assessments. </p>
<p>With communities reliant on glaciers for water, and these same glaciers likely to melt faster as the climate warms, work examining complex forces like black carbon and albedo changes is needed more now than ever before. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1128023">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘Black carbon’ from rainforest fires is settling on glaciers and making them melt faster, according to new research.
Matthew Harris, PhD Researcher, Climate Science, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127000
2019-11-19T17:04:49Z
2019-11-19T17:04:49Z
Old religious tensions resurge in Bolivia after ouster of longtime indigenous president
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302485/original/file-20191119-111697-1qxs8f1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C12%2C4264%2C2843&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales rally with indigenous flags outside the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, Nov. 18, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bolivia-Protests/b6e54609714043fdb19cf2f3b991f2bb/10/0">AP Photo/Juan Karita</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Days after the powerful Bolivian leader Evo Morales was forced to resign as president after <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-bolivias-2019-presidential-race">allegations of election fraud</a>, Bolivia’s new interim president made her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/world/americas/evo-morales-mexico-bolivia.html">first public appearance</a>. </p>
<p>Climbing to the balcony of the Presidential Palace in La Paz, Jeanine Áñez – formerly a senator representing Bolivia’s weak political opposition – grabbed a Bible. </p>
<p>“This Bible is very important to us. Our strength is God,” <a href="https://twitter.com/LaRazon_Bolivia/status/1194405431625560065">said the 52-year-old politician from the lowlands province of Beni</a>, holding the modern, pink-covered book up for the cameras. “Power is God.”</p>
<p>Invoking a Christian god as the source of political power, while commonplace in many countries, is a radical departure in Bolivia after Morales’ 14-year tenure. </p>
<p>Morales, a native Bolivian of Aymara indigenous descent, was the South American country’s first indigenous leader since independence from Spanish colonial rule in 1825. Indigenous people and symbols – like the <a href="https://chiletoday.cl/site/the-wiphala-what-does-this-indigenous-flag-mean/">multicolored Wiphala flag</a> that represents the many Andean indigenous groups, and the Andean cross, or <a href="https://www.prensaindigena.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25254:peru-wayra-katari-y-la-nueva-historia-andina&catid=86&Itemid=435">chakana</a> – filled the halls of power in Bolivia during his three terms.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C6000%2C3844&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301814/original/file-20191114-26222-yiaieu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bolivia’s new interim President, Jeanine Añez, has ties to conservative Christian groups, Nov. 13, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bolivia-Protests/e63c10cabadc43eb8c24c1332f135730/14/0">AP Photo/Juan Karita</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indigenous religiosity</h2>
<p>Bolivia, a mountainous country north of Argentina, is 41% <a href="https://www.iwgia.org/en/bolivia">indigenous</a>, according to the 2012 census. Most of the rest of Bolivia’s 11 million people consider themselves to be mixed race, though analysts say that self-reported census data <a href="http://www.cejis.org/bolivia-censo-2012-algunas-claves-para-entender-la-variable-indigena/">tends to undercount the indigenous population</a>. </p>
<p>Religion does not map neatly onto ethnic divisions in Bolivia. Only around 4% of Bolivians claim to practice indigenous religions. The majority – about 75% – are Catholic, and 18% belong to <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/stand-in-president-brings-back-bible-to-bolivian-politics/article/561763">evangelical or other Protestant denominations</a>.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://asu.academia.edu/MatthewPeterCasey">as my ongoing research shows</a>, religion, ethnicity and culture are tightly woven together in the Andes region. In Bolivia, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/day-of-the-dead-from-aztec-goddess-worship-to-modern-mexican-celebration-124962">elsewhere in Latin America</a>, indigenous people may belong to Christian churches and also observe native religious practices. </p>
<p>Since independence, Bolivian political leaders have promoted the country’s Hispanic and Catholic heritage, not in addition to its indigenous history but to the exclusion of it. In the 20th century, indigenous people who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18727510">revolted against their economic and social marginalization</a> were brutally repressed.</p>
<p>Throughout the Cold War, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14026">Bolivian Fascist party</a> members pushed for a Catholic republic modeled on Francisco Franco’s Spain. Generations of Catholic school students were taught <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/fascismo-en-bolivia-tactica-y-estrategia-revolucionarias/oclc/14370576">Christian nationalism from their Spanish Jesuit teachers</a>. </p>
<p>Morales, a former coca farmer, recognized indigeneity as the heart of Bolivian nationhood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302480/original/file-20191119-111640-c1v6ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evo Morales (center) was Bolivia’s first indigenous president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Peru-Americas-Summit/8a54f2daee0248929e1d7709c9783efe/20/0">AP Photo/Martin Mejia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under Morales’ leadership, Bolivia’s name was changed to the Plurinational State of Bolivia in 2009, and the law now <a href="https://www.opinion.com.bo/articulo/pais/las-36-naciones-de-bolivia/20130806020300444625.html">recognizes 36 indigenous languages and ethnicities</a>. Morales also protected the right of indigenous communities to practice their religion. August became the Month of Pachamama, the Andean mother earth – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/americas/21witch.html">30 days of ancestral celebrations</a> kicked off by the ritual sacrifice of llamas and other animals on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyhEon3LgXE">banks of Lake Titicaca</a>.</p>
<p>Morales also built a new government building designed to acknowledge the country’s indigenous heritage. The 29-story <a href="https://www.dw.com/es/evo-morales-inaugura-monumental-casa-grande-del-pueblo-en-la-paz/a-45030140">Casa Grande del Pueblo</a> – “Big House of the People” – blends hyper modern design with indigenous artistic flourishes. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-45229290">interior decor</a> is inspired by the ceremonial ruins of the pre-Inca civilization of Tiahuanaco, located 40 miles east of La Paz.</p>
<h2>Distancing Bolivia from Catholicism</h2>
<p>Morales, who has taken asylum in Mexico since resigning as president, also worked to separate church from state in Bolivia. Bolivia’s new <a href="https://www.lexivox.org/norms/BO-CPE-20090207.html">constitution, written in 2009</a>, formally ended the Catholic Church’s designation as the protected religion of the state.</p>
<p>Morales is <a href="https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/mundo/tras-salida-de-evo-morales-la-biblia-y-el-poder-politico-cristiano-irrumpen-en-bolivia">Catholic</a>. But he is openly critical of the Catholic Church, which supported <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;iel=2;view=toc;idno=heb03631.0001.001">the Spanish colonization of Latin America</a> in the 16th century and, throughout the 20th century, aided <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/transatlantic-fascism">Fascist party organizing</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, he famously gave Pope Francis a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/americas/pope-crucifix/index.html">hammer and sickle crucifix</a> designed by the Bolivian priest Luis Espinal before his assassination in 1980 – a symbol of Liberation Theology, a <a href="https://www.alainet.org/es/active/66203">progressive Latin American strand of Catholicism</a> that challenged dictatorships and championed the cause of the poor during the 1970s and 1980s.</p>
<p>Morales’ secular agenda was met with criticism from conservative Christian groups. Some viewed the reforms as fomenting “<a href="https://www.actuall.com/laicismo/evo-morales-pretende-meter-la-carcel-obispos-curas-predicar-evangelio/">paganism</a>.” Others said he promoted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0x5b8nOcc">atheistic socialism</a>.</p>
<h2>A Christian nationalist revival</h2>
<p>The interim administration in Bolivia has ties to the <a href="https://www.pagina12.com.ar/231205-satanas-fuera-de-bolivia-el-ritual-de-camacho-y-sus-seguidor">conservative Christian groups</a> that were highly critical of Morales throughout his administration.</p>
<p>As senator, interim President Áñez made <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/internacional/Estos-son-los-agresivos-tuits-contra-originarios-e-indigenas-que-borro-Jeanine-Anez-la-presidenta-de-Bolivia-20191116-0518.html">openly anti-indigenous statements</a>. In a 2013 tweet, now deleted, she referred to native Aymara celebrating their new year with ancestral rituals as “satanic.”</p>
<p>And just <a href="https://factual.afp.com/estos-son-los-agresivos-tuits-contra-originarios-e-indigenas-que-borro-la-presidenta-interina-de">five days before her innaugeration</a>, Áñez mocked a group of indigenous Quechua men on Twitter because they were dressed in ritual vestments with modern shoes and blue jeans, writing, “Original Peoples???”</p>
<p>Her rise to power has reignited some of the anti-indigenous sentiment that was so dominant in Bolivia before Morales’ administration. Since Morales’ ouster, there are reports of Wiphalas flags being torn down and burned. Police officers and military members were <a href="https://magnet.xataka.com/en-diez-minutos/que-hace-ejercito-cortando-banderas-conflicto-etnia-clase-religion-crisis-bolivia">filmed</a> cutting the indigenous flag from their uniforms.</p>
<p>“Bolivia for Christ, Pachamama will never again enter this palace,” said the protest leader Luis Fernando Camacho, an Áñez ally, <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/bloggers/Bolivia-golpe-de-Estado-y-la-irresuelta-guerra-entre-la-Biblia-y-la-Wiphala-20191113-0001.html">kneeling before the Bible on the Bolivian flag</a> at the government palace on Nov. 10. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302478/original/file-20191119-111630-izh2ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Security forces block supporters of former President Evo Morales outside Cochabamba, Bolivia, Nov. 18, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Bolivia-Protests/f056effea372414d9e630e6b402a6e77/7/0">AP Photo/Juan Karita</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indigenous Bolivians fearful</h2>
<p>Indigenous Bolivians are concerned about the direction their country is headed under Áñez, though she may only be in power for a few months until new elections are called.</p>
<p>In the days since Morales left office, masses of Morales supporters have marched in from the countryside to convene in Bolivian cities, where they’re <a href="https://twitter.com/Marco_Teruggi/status/1196514476784263168">calling for the end to the interim government</a>. </p>
<p>Many say they fear repression from the military under the interim government. They worry that the political violence that has gripped Bolivia since its Oct. 20 election will turn into a racialized, religious violence targeting indigenous people. </p>
<p>“All of us who have Indian-looking faces are signaled as part of Morales’ party, especially indigenous women,” the feminist activist Adriana Guzmán <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/news/caracter-racista-golpe-estado-bolivia-comunidad-indigena-20191113-0035.html">said to the news outlet Telesur news after Morales’ removal</a>.</p>
<p>With dozens dead and more than 700 injured in <a href="https://www.pagina12.com.ar/231398-carta-blanca-para-la-represion-y-la-impunidad-en-bolivia">military opperations ordered by Áñez</a> “to re-establish order,” the political situation <a href="https://www.msn.com/es-us/noticias/mundo/la-cidh-denuncia-que-hay-al-menos-23-muertos-y-715-heridos-desde-el-inicio-de-la-crisis-en-bolivia/ar-BBWSGBX">remains volatile</a>. </p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Casey-Pariseault does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Indigenous people, symbols and religious practices filled the halls of power in Bolivia during Evo Morales’ 14-year tenure. Now a new conservative Christian leader seems to be erasing that legacy.
Matthew Casey-Pariseault, Clinical Assistant Professor of History, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121284
2019-08-26T11:08:52Z
2019-08-26T11:08:52Z
Peru’s ancient water systems can help protect communities from shortages caused by climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289231/original/file-20190823-170931-ppmt3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvesting wheat in the Peruvian Andes. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wheat-harvesting-cordiliera-negra-peru-south-148921097?src=g4ByBcTGSiVWxelmE3aF_g-1-19">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Water is essential for human life, but in many parts of the world <a href="https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/climate-change/">water supplies are under threat</a> from more extreme, less predictable weather conditions due to climate change. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Peruvian Andes, where rising temperatures and receding glaciers forewarn of imminent water scarcity for the communities that live there. </p>
<p>Peru holds <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/06/12/vanishing-glaciers-future-water-perus-high-andes/">more than 70%</a> of the world’s tropical glaciers. Along the 180 kilometre expanse of the Cordillera Blanca (“white mountains”), more than <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045608.2010.497369">250,000 people</a> depend on glaciers for a year-round supply of water. Meltwater from the glaciers supplies rivers, offering <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045608.2013.754665">a vital supplement</a> to rainwater so that locals can continue irrigating food crops throughout the dry season, from May to October.</p>
<p>But Peruvian glaciers have shrunk by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425713002848">25% since 1987</a>, and the water supply to rivers during the dry season is gradually decreasing. While national and regional governments and NGOs are responding to the threat of water scarcity with modern engineering solutions, there are growing concerns among the communities affected that such efforts are misplaced. </p>
<h2>Modern day misfires</h2>
<p>Take, for example, the village of Huashao. Nestled between the highest peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, Huashao is a typical farming village of the region. Glacier meltwater feeds the Yurac Uran Atma canal, which supplies irrigation water to families in Huashao. In 2011, a municipal government project transformed this canal from a rustic irrigation ditch to a modern PVC pipeline, with lock-gates to regulate the flow of water and ensure equal distribution throughout the village.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289213/original/file-20190823-170927-x3u7e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The village of Huashao.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/condevcenter/25702827064/sizes/l">Jessica Gilbert, Center on Conflict and Development/Flickr.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Governments and NGOs commonly promote modern measures to capture and conserve water for irrigation – for example, by lining irrigation canals with concrete, to prevent leakages. While it’s important to conserve water to safeguard food supplies, these kinds of measures <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016300541">have been criticised</a> for their lack of flexibility and sensitivity to local needs. </p>
<p>While the pipeline in Huashao provided security and reduced the amount of time people had to devote to distributing water where it was needed, <a href="https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/190141344/ConservatSoc1711_2557985_070619.pdf">Conlon’s ongoing ethnographic research</a> in the village found that local women were concerned about its effect on the local puquios (springs) – a valued source of irrigation and drinking water. </p>
<p>Noticing less water in puquios, they blamed the canal lining for stopping water from filtering into the local geology. Local communities see this process as an integral part of water distribution, but authorities often refer to it as “leakage”. </p>
<p>What’s more, the local people responsible for maintaining and operating the new canal found that not everything worked as planned. They were particularly worried when a problem caused water to overflow the canal walls, and blamed the design of the lock–gates. </p>
<p>Here, the government’s preference for modern engineering meant that it missed an opportunity to engage with traditional technologies and local knowledge. This is hardly surprising – ancient know-how has been <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qy2RDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA97&ots=VzIO0EyFMc&sig=ChFElr7u_aHUM7-UaVF3U5cO3kE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">routinely dismissed</a> as inferior by state authorities and well-meaning (but badly briefed) NGOs. Yet traditional technologies, like the puquios, have been providing flexible ways to manage water in Huashao for hundreds of years. </p>
<p>In Huashao, the local people are coming to realise the limitations of modern engineering. But across the Andes, many other communities are still seduced by the promise of quick fixes offered by concrete, steel and PVC pipelines. Unfortunately, initial, costly investments of aid and expertise are rarely followed up, and since communities often lack the necessary knowledge and funds to maintain these systems, they <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qy2RDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA97&ots=VzIO0EyFMc&sig=ChFElr7u_aHUM7-UaVF3U5cO3kE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">eventually break down</a>. </p>
<h2>Ancient married with modern</h2>
<p>Slowly, a push back is starting. There has been renewed interest in what society can learn from traditional irrigation systems. A recent <a href="http://www.sru.uea.ac.uk/research/conferences/archive/paleoclimate-ancient-peru">international workshop</a> held in Trujillo, Peru, brought together social scientists, geographers and climate scientists to discuss how to tackle issues around water use and scarcity. </p>
<p>It seems likely that the best solutions will be found by combining old and new knowledge, rather than dismissing one in favour of the other. For instance, parallel to the Cordillera Blanca is the Cordillera Negra (“black mountains”), which faces the Pacific Ocean. Without the benefit of glaciers, the ancient inhabitants of this area learned to harness rain water to see them through the dry season. </p>
<p>These pre-Colombian cultures instigated millennia-long engineering projects, resulting in large dams and reservoirs placed along the slopes of the mountains. These structures controlled water and soil erosion, feeding underground water deposits and providing water for crops and livestock. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289246/original/file-20190823-170946-6137sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ancient dam in the Cordillera Negra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kevin Lane.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disuse over the last few centuries means that few are still functioning, but those that are, are a tribute to the ancient expertise. By contrast, modern concrete micro-dams <a href="https://www.academia.edu/4623144/Cambio_clim%C3%A1tico_y_crisis_h%C3%ADdrica._Pol%C3%ADticas_p%C3%BAblicas_y_cambio_de_paradigmas_globales">have a functional life</a> of 40 to 50 years, often curtailed by seismic activity to between 15 and 25 years. </p>
<p>Fortunately, <a href="https://www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/en/general-research-grants-projects?page_id=32">plans are afoot</a> to revisit these old technologies. Solutions rooted in respect for community and local knowledge, and allied to flexible modern engineering – such as better water retainment technology – are exploring ways in which we can shore-up the effectiveness of these ancient dams.</p>
<p>Throwing money and resources into engineering projects does not always guarantee success when trying to combat the effects of climate change and protect vulnerable communities. But the marriage of ancient and modern technologies offers promising solutions to the threat of water scarcity in Peru, and places like it all across the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan is affiliated with the Cabot Institute for the Environment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Lane has received funding from the Leverhulme Foundation and the British Academy, in relation to this research. </span></em></p>
Peruvian glaciers have shrunk by 25% since 1987, causing water shortages in rural villages. But ancient technology could help manage this precious resource.
Susan Conlon, Research Associate, University of Bristol
Kevin Lane, Senior Researcher in Archaeology, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100078
2018-07-19T19:05:46Z
2018-07-19T19:05:46Z
How virtual worlds can recreate the geographic history of life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228498/original/file-20180719-142417-1jtl4pj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Forest near Sarayaku, Ecuador.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/3hBeBj">skifatenum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Amazon and the adjacent Andean slopes in South America host an astonishing richness of plants and animals. These species have been sources of food, shelter and medicine since <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/its-now-clear-that-ancient-humans-helped-enrich-the-amazon/518439/">the arrival of humans</a> and a target of scientific curiosity since the days of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-most-influential-scientist-you-may-never-have-heard-of-35285">the earliest European naturalist explorers</a>. </p>
<p>What processes produce such hot spots of species richness, and why does biodiversity gradually decline towards higher latitudes and drier climates? Scientists have proposed many competing explanations, but there is no easy way to test them. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=i2OF2g0AAAAJ&hl=en">biogeographers</a>, those of us who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EHbuZpYAAAAJ&hl=en">study the geography of life</a> on the planet, we do not have the option of carrying out real-world experiments. It would be both impractical and unethical to undertake massive introductions or exterminations of species and then wait centuries or millennia for results. </p>
<p>Instead, as reported in <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6399/eaar5452.full">our 2018 study</a> published in the journal Science, we brought together an interdisciplinary team of biogeographers and climate modelers to create a virtual world – a place to do virtual experiments. The world we recreated was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXdTPN1cuI0&feature=youtu.be">a time-lapse simulation of life</a> on the continent of South America, from 800,000 years ago up to the present, through the whipsaw climates of the last eight glacial cycles. If patterns of biodiversity produced in this simulated world produced reasonably realistic patterns of diversity, then we could be confident that the ecological and evolutionary processes built into the simulation were right.</p>
<p>What we found was a surprise beyond our fondest expectations. The maps of South American species diversity that emerged from our simulations looked remarkably similar to maps of living birds, mammals and plants. What’s more, the simulations confirmed intermittent migration corridors between the Andes and the Atlantic Rainforest in southeastern Brazil. These regions are currently isolated from each other by drier climates, but scientists have long suspected that connections existed, based on the presence of closely related living species in both regions.</p>
<h2>Virtual life in a virtual world</h2>
<p>Each simulation began with a single imaginary species, seeded somewhere on a detailed topographic map of South America. In time steps of 500 years, totaling 1,600 steps in all, the climate was updated with a state-of-the-art paleo-climate model created by our colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kSDahsoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Neil Edwards</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1gais1MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Phil Holden</a> at The Open University in the U.K.</p>
<p>In all we ran more than a thousand simulations, each with a different combination of settings for just four variables: </p>
<p>– How long a population must be isolated to become a new species</p>
<p>– How fast species can evolve to survive, in response to climate change </p>
<p>– How far a species can move across unsuitable habitat </p>
<p>– How strongly closely related species compete with each other.</p>
<p>Why was the strong correspondence between our simulated maps of species richness and the real-world maps for birds, mammals and plants so surprising? Because our simulations covered only a tiny slice of time in the long history of South America. Eight hundred thousand years may seem like deep time, but South America separated from Africa 130 million years ago, and the Andes began their rise 25 million years ago. A growing list of South American plant and animal groups are now known to have diversified over the Late Quaternary Period – roughly the past 800,000 years – but most species on the continent are much older. </p>
<p>We also were surprised that our simulated maps resembled actual species richness patterns so closely, because our maps were not guided by any particular target pattern of diversity. They were built strictly on fundamental processes, as understood from basic research in ecology and evolutionary biology. For example, we modeled evolutionary adaptation to climate extremes using principles and equations from population genetics.</p>
<h2>From cradle to museum to grave</h2>
<p>Species alive today are survivors. They are the upper tips of evolutionary trees with many dead branches below, which represent extinctions in the past. Evolutionary biologists are now able to infer, in many cases, where the ancestors of living species may have lived. Regions where species proliferated in the past have come to be called “cradles” of speciation. For example, the Andean slopes have long been considered a hot spot of speciation. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228496/original/file-20180719-142426-1lcts86.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1274&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Darwin’s first diagram of an evolutionary tree, from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837). His notes make clear that he understood that extinctions are an essential element of evolution: ‘Thus genera would be formed bearing relation to ancient types with several extinct forms.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regions where species have persisted for especially long periods are called “museums.” Any region, such as the Amazon, where many ancient species persist can be considered a biogeographical museum. In contrast, reckoning where the dead branches in the evolutionary tree should be placed on the map – the “graves” – is virtually impossible by studying the geography of living survivors. </p>
<p>Through our simulations, we followed and mapped the entire “lifetime trajectory” of each virtual species, from cradle to grave, in space and in time. </p>
<p>As the climate changes from step to step in a simulation, the geographical range of a species (its location on the map) may be fragmented by unsuitable climate. If a fragment persists in isolation long enough, it is declared a new species. The time of fragmentation and the location of such a fragment during this period of isolation defines the “cradle segment” of its lifetime trajectory.</p>
<p>When and if a virtual species goes extinct, we record the time and plot on the map the location of the decline towards extinction, which represents the “grave segment” of the species’ lifetime trajectory. The time and place that each species persists between the cradle stage and grave stage defines the “museum segment” of its lifetime trajectory.</p>
<p>Our simulations produced maps of cradles, museums, and for the first time, graves. The maps confirmed that the eastern slopes of the Andes and the western Amazon are cradles of speciation. Graves of extinction coincided with cradles in some regions, such as the Amazon, and were displaced from cradles in others, such as the Andes. The eastern slope of the tropical Andes proved to be not only a cradle, but also a rich museum of biodiversity. </p>
<p>We also kept track of when speciation and extinction peaked and declined over the course of the simulations, and found that glacial cycles drove both processes. Peaks of extinction tended to follow peaks of speciation in periods of rapid warming at the end of cold glacial periods. </p>
<h2>Climate dynamics and topography drive the patterns</h2>
<p>Our study leads us to believe that patterns of richness for living species, regardless of a species’ age, have their origins in the same underlying processes that we modeled in the simulation. The interaction between the turbulent climates of the past 800,000 years and the dramatic landscapes of South America drove speciation in some younger groups of plants and animals, but shuffled the location of both young and ancient species in concert, indiscriminately.</p>
<p>Human activities are forcing changes in the global climate at an unprecedented rate, much faster than the climate dynamics in our model. We know that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aai9214">species are already on the move</a>, their ranges shifting at alarming rates on land and in the seas, with profound effects on human life and livelihoods. </p>
<p>Although our simulations were not designed to predict the future, they vividly reveal the dynamic power of climate change to shape life on Earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert K. Colwell has received funding from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil, for this project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thiago F. Rangel was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil.
This project is also supported by INCT in Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, funded by MCTIC/CNPq and FAPEG.</span></em></p>
What drives the emergence and disappearance of species? By modeling the fundamental processes of evolution and ecology on geographical scales, new research spotlights topography and climatic shifts.
Robert K. Colwell, Distinguished Research Professor, University of Connecticut
Thiago F. Rangel, Professor of Ecology, Universidade Federal de Goias (UFG)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74723
2017-03-19T22:40:26Z
2017-03-19T22:40:26Z
Why coca leaf, not coffee, may always be Colombia’s favourite cash crop
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/en-colombia-la-coca-triunfara-sobre-el-cafe-o-la-miel-por-una-simple-razon-comercial-97662">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>Colombia’s current peace process is facing <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-colombia-actually-put-its-peace-plan-into-action-73895">numerous challenges</a>. In a country that has suffered the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-united-nations-assembly-war-on-drugs">worst impacts</a> of the international drug war, one main dilemma is this: what to do with rural regions which have specialised in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Mejia-Colombia-final-2.pdf">producing coca leaf</a>, the main ingredient in one of the world’s most lucrative products?</p>
<p>For 35 years, the international cocaine trade has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-true-cost-of-cocaine-11992">made drug cartels rich</a> and helped <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/farc-cocaine-colombia/489551/">fund and expand the activities of the FARC guerrillas</a> throughout Colombia’s most remote areas. Even as the three-year peace negotiations were underway, coca cultivation in Colombia <a href="https://www.incb.org/documents/Publications/AnnualReports/AR2016/Spanish/AR2016_S_ebook.pdf">increased by 39%</a>, from 69,000 hectares in 2014 to 96,000 in 2016.</p>
<p>Colombian coca growers have not benefited from the cocaine trade in the same way, of course. They remain, for the most part, <a href="http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20170312/42175551439/hoja-de-coca-colombia-narcotrafico-consumo-mambeo.html">poor farmers</a>. But coca leaf, or <em>hoja de coca</em>, has provided a livelihood for <a href="http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/mundo-colombia-entrega-tierras-familias.html">thousands of families</a> for generations. How can Colombia’s government move them out of this market while demobilising the guerrillas that once controlled coca-producing areas? </p>
<p>One of the least controversial proposals in the FARC peace accords is the idea of <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53712#.WLcbXTvytEY">crop substitution and alternative development</a> in these regions. With support from the government and the UN, some 100,000 families in the Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo, Caquetá, Meta, Guaviare, Catatumbo, Antioquía and Bolívar provinces <a href="http://www.coha.org/despite-peace-colombian-coca-is-here-to-stay/">would begin to grow</a> cacao, coffee or honey instead of coca.</p>
<p>This sounds good in theory. But in practice it’s an extremely complicated proposal because of the uncomfortable truth about international agricultural markets: only in illicit ones are poor local producers able to sell their product for a price that actually covers the cost of inputs: land, labour and capital.</p>
<p>In a globalised world, illegal crops such as coca, cannabis and poppies are poor farmers’ rational response to the ruinously low prices of imported subsidised farm products.</p>
<h2>Farm subsidies distort the agricultural market</h2>
<p>Governments pay <a href="https://theconversation.com/global/topics/farming-subsidies-8998">agricultural subsidies</a> to farmers and agribusinesses to supplement income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of commodities. </p>
<p>Though many countries use this economic policy, subsidies are most significant primarily in the rich world. According to <a href="http://www.oecd.org/tad/agricultural-policies/producerandconsumersupportestimatesdatabase.htm">data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development</a> (OECD), in 1986 such financial assistance amounted to US$41 billion in 2014. </p>
<p>The corn market, for example, is highly subsidised. From 1979 to 1992, OECD nations’ <a href="http://www.oecdbookshop.org/browse.asp?pid=title-detail&lang=en&ds=&ISB=9789264173033">subsidies for maize producers</a> increased from 28% to 38%. In the US, the market price for corn stayed steady at about <a href="http://www.macrotrends.net/2532/corn-prices-historical-chart-data">US$2.50 a bushel</a> during this 13-year period. </p>
<p>Neither Colombia nor other Andean countries could afford such subsidies, meaning local producers couldn’t compete with low-cost imports. In Colombia, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=akgqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=colombia+exportaciones+de+maiz+1979+a+1992&source=bl&ots=smg1ScJpQx&sig=KYe7EQ9iESbmyjejle-k1FxHwGs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm34zQotfSAhVQ3GMKHXEJAzAQ6AEIHDAB#v=onepage&q=colombia%20exportaciones%20de%20maiz%201979%20a%201992&f=false">the market cost of corn</a> dropped about 20% from 1979 to 1992; coffee, cacao and sugar prices plummeted even further. </p>
<p>The relationship <a href="http://emerald.tufts.edu/%7Emmcmilla/papers/McMillanMyPoliciesOrYours.pdf">is not linear</a>, but it’s real: in 2002 the FAO acknowledged that rich-country farm subsidies <a href="http://www.fao.org/spanish/newsroom/focus/2003/wto2.htm">hurt producers in the developing world</a>. They allow farmers and agrobusiness to distort the market by offering cheap commodities that sell for less than the cost of production, eliminating competition from producers in poorer countries.</p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that major Andean coca cultivation also began when rich-country farming subsidies increased. From 1980 to 1988 in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru <a href="http://eprints.ucm.es/1989/1/S1031901.pdf">the area dedicated to coca growing rose</a> from 85,000 hectares (99,000 metric tonnes produced) to 210,000 hectares (227,000 metric tonnes produced). Production has since stabilised at around <a href="http://www.simdev.gob.pe/superficie-de-cultivo-de-coca/">157,000 hectares</a>, producing some 170,000 metric tonnes of coca leaf.</p>
<p>Coca cultivation, in short, is just one part of a revolution in the global agricultural trade in which traditional roles of producing countries and consuming countries have been inverted. In 1977, developing countries were running a trade surplus of US$17.5 billion with developed countries; by 1996, that surplus had become a deficit of US$6 billion with the rich world, according to the UN <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y3557s/y3557s00.htm">Food and Agriculture Organisation</a>.</p>
<h2>The rationality of coca</h2>
<p>In such a system, illicit crops became one of the only ways for many farmers areas to make a decent living. </p>
<p>The international experts who promote alternative development as the solution for Colombian coca seem to be forgetting or avoiding this fact. For markets to be effective – whether legal or illegal – they must provide proper remuneration of input costs. If the price of goods is below the local production costs, that business model will necessarily fail.</p>
<p>Peasants cannot renounce the higher coca-farming income that supports them and their families, any more than they can change where they live, or the water, weather or soil conditions of the Andean region. Coca <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-drugs-un-bolivia-idUSBRE82C02720120313">is also an ancestral Andean plant</a> with centuries of use by local populations – a non-negligible factor in its enduring appeal.</p>
<p>These questions are part of what has driven the “fight for the land”, the rural bloodshed, the paramilitaries and guerrilla violence that <a href="https://theconversation.com/colombias-peace-plebiscite-the-case-for-yes-and-the-case-for-no-66325">has plagued Colombia for the past 52 years</a>. </p>
<p>This is not to discount alternative development entirely. Comprehensive rural development projects that help local populations gain access to basic needs (potable water, housing, communications and urban infrastructure) and social services (health, education and recreation) are necessary for local communities, whether they grow legal or illegal crops. </p>
<p>But the central strategic problem of crop substitution remains the slim profit margins for legal products such as coffee, honey and chocolate. Until the international agricultural market solves its subsidies problem, coca leaf will always be Colombia’s best cash crop. It raises the question: what if <a href="http://pacifista.co/coca-regulada-paz-garantizada/">coca were legal</a>, too?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iban de Rementeria is affiliated with the Red Chilena de Reducción de Daños (Chilean Harm Reduction Network).</span></em></p>
Colombia’s plan to turn coca-leaf farmers into coffee growers has a fatal flaw: the market.
Iban de Rementeria, Professor and Researcher, Drug Policy Program, Social Sciences Faculty, Universidad Central de Chile
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/68784
2016-11-15T15:02:36Z
2016-11-15T15:02:36Z
How Planet Earth’s ice-skating flamingos collectively get ‘in the mood’ for sex
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146040/original/image-20161115-31126-p73vqp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC NHU/© Justin Anderson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 1980 animated feature film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078780/">Animalympics</a> featured an ice-skating flamingo who competed for gold against a whole range of other sporting animals. In the second edition of BBC nature programme Planet Earth II, this cartoon seemed to have turned into reality. Sort of. The flocks of flamingos filmed high in the Andes Mountains were certainly skating along on their frozen pools, though they didn’t quite provide a medal-winning performance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"797900601308958724"}"></div></p>
<p>For a bird as fragile-looking as the flamingo, this bleak, icy wetland would seem a strange place to call home. Yet many of them do, and Planet Earth features two of my favourite species: the Andean flamingo (<em>Phoenicoparrus andinus</em>) and the James’ flamingo (<em>P. jamesi</em>), also known as the <em>puna</em> flamingo, after the local term for these high plateaus. The Andean is the rarest of the six flamingo species, with <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22697387/0">fewer than 40,000</a> remaining in the wild. </p>
<p>Their movements and breeding cycles are hard to predict and tricky to study. So vast is the Andes plateau that the James’ flamingo was considered extinct until 1956 when it was suddenly rediscovered in Bolivia’s remote Laguna Colorada (Red Lake), 4,000 metres above sea level. Flamingos do a good disappearing act; whole flocks will vanish overnight as they travel between mountain lakes searching for the best food supply.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146070/original/image-20161115-31135-1hv0h75.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author studies the social lives of these Andean flamingos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Rose</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Flamingos thrive in inhospitable conditions</h2>
<p>Flamingos are often associated with tropical beaches, palm trees and piña coladas. But this is far from the truth. All six species are highly adapted to living in inhospitable and unfriendly environments such as very salty or very alkaline wetlands. More than a million <a href="http://www.birdlife.org/africa/projects/lake-natron-tanzania">lesser flamingos</a> breed in Tanzania’s Lake Natron, for instance, a lake fed by hot springs with water so alkaline that it can strip away human skin (one pioneering flamingo researcher named <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/mystery-flamingos-Leslie-Brown/dp/B0000CKJ6O">Leslie Brown</a> spent months in Nairobi General Hospital after burning his legs wading out to observe where the birds nested).</p>
<p>Yet flamingos thrive in conditions like these. And they thrive because, in each location, they have discovered an untapped food source they can collect with little competition from other species.</p>
<p>Flamingos have very specialised diets. And their food is responsible for their famous pink colouration. The two species in Planet Earth II eat a lot of floating microscopic algae, which contains <a href="http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/27/tracing-the-roots-of-beautiful-bird-hues/">carotenoid pigments</a>, the same types of chemical that make carrots orange. These pigments turn their feathers pink, orange and red – without them, flamingos would be white. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145886/original/image-20161114-5101-sdzwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The black feathers are fully revealed once the flamingo unfurls its wings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galyna Andrushko / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only feathers on the birds that do not get stained pink are their black wing feathers. Flamingos are heavy birds and black primary feathers are more resistant to wear-and-tear.</p>
<h2>Flamingos do everything together – even breeding</h2>
<p>As the wetlands in which they find their carotenoid pigments are few and far between, flamingos really do have to bump along in a crowd. But they have used this restriction on habitat choice to their advantage. Evolution has moulded them into a highly gregarious species, and the organised society that flamingos live in is integral to their whole way of life. </p>
<p>This even extends to reproduction. To feel comfortable enough to breed, as many birds as possible need to be “in the mood” at once. The wonderful footage of the Andean flamingos promenading across your TV screen is part of getting everyone <a href="http://wildfowl.wwt.org.uk/index.php/wildfowl/article/view/1029">focused on reproduction</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"798209368705466369"}"></div></p>
<p>It takes a lot of time and effort to rear a flamingo chick, and success is greatest if the whole flock breeds as one. Because environmental conditions are not always perfect, flamingos will delay breeding until they feel it is worth the effort. </p>
<p>And if this is your reproductive strategy then you need to live for quite a while. Flamingos take this to extremes. The world’s oldest bird, a greater flamingo (<em>Phoenicopterus roseus</em>) died in Adelaide Zoo in 2014 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/31/worlds-oldest-flamingo-dies-adelaide-zoo">aged 83</a>, and wild flamingos have been clocked <a href="http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/26/message-from-a-50-year-old-flamingo/">into their fifties</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146063/original/image-20161115-31123-1cr5vq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andean flamingo at Slimbridge, 1961. Many of this first group are still alive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/all-news/2016/07/wwt-slimbridge-diaries/wwt-slimbridge-diaries-flamingo-diary/some-very-special-birthdays/">WWT</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Andean flamingos I study at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, have been around since the 1960s and are <a href="https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/all-news/2016/07/wwt-slimbridge-diaries/wwt-slimbridge-diaries-flamingo-diary/some-very-special-birthdays/">still going strong</a>. The birds are all ringed so I am able to tell them apart and identify the real characters in the group. I’m fascinated by the soap opera of their individual social lives and have made this the key focus of <a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/researcher/paulrose/">my research</a>. </p>
<p>The combination of erratic, collective reproduction and long lifespans has served flamingos well for many years. But the birds cannot always cope with human-caused changes to climate, alterations to wetland systems, and encroachment into their feeding and breeding areas. Some populations are <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22697365/0">in decline</a> and their unique breeding cycle means <a href="http://www.amnh.org/our-research/center-for-biodiversity-conservation/research-and-conservation/species-based-research/birds/flamingos-in-the-americas/">recovery</a> will be a long, slow process at best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rose is a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust PhD researcher from the University of Exeter. </span></em></p>
How and why these bizarre stars of Planet Earth II ended up living in icy lakes high in the Andes mountains.
Paul Rose, Associate Fellow, Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60603
2016-06-08T05:35:01Z
2016-06-08T05:35:01Z
How to stop vampire bats wreaking havoc (no stakes or garlic required)
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125571/original/image-20160607-15049-6lhmjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Streicker/Julio Benavides</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the darkest hours of the night, they fly and hunt for prey. They live in caves and ruined buildings and have to drink blood every night to survive. They can bite with their fangs without you even noticing. No wonder these bats are called vampires. Yet when it comes to coping with these bloodthirsty creatures, the good news is that a breakthrough could finally be in sight. </p>
<p>Vampire bats only live in one part of the world – which is a relief, unless you happen to be in Latin America. They exist between northern Mexico and northern Chile, and they are a major problem. They are now the <a href="http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1020-49892009000300010">main cause</a> of human deaths from rabies in the region. </p>
<p>Between 2009 and 2013, vampire bats bit 20,000 people in Peru alone, according to the country’s health minister; and in communities across the Amazon, where bites are commonplace, the rate of rabies infection <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9025698">could be</a> almost as high as 1% per year. At least 12 children were killed by rabies earlier <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3440814/Rabies-spread-bats-kills-12-Peruvian-Amazon.html">this year</a> in a single outbreak. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168170205000705">farmers lose</a> a few thousand livestock every year – or perhaps many more, since the worst-hit remote communities almost certainly under-report infection rates. We found that about 70% of farms in the Andes have at least one animal bitten regularly. </p>
<p>The virus is also steadily expanding into areas that were historically free of the disease, as we discovered through our <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1832/20160328">recent work</a> in Peru. As many as 12 new governmental districts become infected per year on average, which has doubled the number of outbreaks at national level. We found that the virus invades new areas in waves that advance at between 10km and 20km per year. The advance is stalled only by tall mountains that rise above the altitudes where bats thrive. </p>
<p>We don’t know what has sparked the spread of rabies into new territories, but one possibility is that bats nowadays have access to more livestock and man-made structures for roosting. This could be making it possible to allow the disease to spread by connecting previously isolated populations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125515/original/image-20160607-15031-1d2fdds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vampire bats have sharp teeth for feeding on blood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=vampire%20bats&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=376769797">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Breaking the waves</h2>
<p>We are pleased to report that the waves of rabies in bats move quite predictably. This makes it possible to forecast in some areas when and where the virus is likely to strike next. With this information, which has not been known until now, the authorities in Peru will have the option of anticipating their arrival, allowing them to vaccinate the animals and people before deaths begin. </p>
<p>This would be a big shift from the norm, where livestock and people typically get vaccinated only after an outbreak has been declared. Assuming the virus behaves in the same way in other countries, the same approach could be adopted across Latin America. </p>
<p>Having said that, vaccinating animals and people does nothing to prevent the spread of the virus. It only saves the recipients of vaccines from dying. If you want to stop the virus, you have to tackle the source of the transmission – the bats themselves. </p>
<p>Since the 1970s, Latin American governments’ answer has been bat culls. Yet there is no <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1439-0450.2003.00713.x/full">convincing evidence</a> that this has made a substantial difference, and it may even have been counterproductive – by <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/06/07/rspb.2012.0538.short">mainly targetting</a> adult bats that are already immune and <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20837.abstract">provoking bats</a> to disperse between roosts, it might have hastened the spread of the disease. </p>
<p>Governments across the world have been <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15742629">very successful</a> at using mass-vaccination programmes to curb rabies in dogs and other key carrier species such as foxes and raccoons, but this has never been attempted on a large scale with vampire bats. This is despite the fact that an effective vaccine is now an option. Researchers in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9682368">Mexico</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18761044">Brazil</a> have shown that you can prevent bats in captivity from catching rabies by giving them an orally transmitted gel that has been impregnated with the vaccine. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125570/original/image-20160607-7438-1g0bp43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rabies spreads among bats by bites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Streicker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether this would work with wild bats is another matter, of course. All the biological and ethical challenges inherent in any wildlife vaccination campaign are likely to apply, not to mention the logistical challenge of remote landscapes in the Andes and Amazon. </p>
<p>But our findings on the way that the disease spreads in waves among bats could change the game here, too: rather than seeking to eliminate rabies from all vampire bats in endemically infected areas, we could try to halt the spread into new areas instead. </p>
<p>It is also important to galvanise interest in bat vaccination among public health officials and conservationists for other reasons. As well as rabies, bat populations are thought to spread other diseases such as <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/">Ebola</a> and <a href="http://www.batcon.org/index.php/our-work/regions/usa-canada/address-serious-threats/wns-intro">white-nose syndrome</a> in other parts of the world. </p>
<p>Given that vampire bat rabies has a major impact on human lives and livestock, and we now have both an effective vaccine and a better understanding of how it spreads, we believe this is the right starting point to inspire a new generation of disease control strategies for bats. It is surely something we could all get our teeth into.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julio Benavides receives funding from The UK – Peru CONCYTEC Fund for Science and Innovation. He is the vice-president of the not-for-profit group Apes Incorporated.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Streicker receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, the Beit Trust, National Geographic, the UK-Peru CONCYTEC Fund for Science and Innovation and the Leverhulme Trust</span></em></p>
They kill thousands of animals and people every year by spreading rabies. New research findings could solve the problem.
Julio Benavides, Research Associate, University of Glasgow
Daniel Streicker, Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/42783
2015-06-08T05:25:24Z
2015-06-08T05:25:24Z
Revealed: the great geologist behind the Origin of Species
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84082/original/image-20150605-14111-1t5e9xf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The young Darwin was also a great geologist. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Charles Darwin published the landmark <a href="http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html">On the Origin of Species</a> in 1859 at the age of 50, he devoted the rest of his professional life to building up evidence to support its central claim – namely that species of plants and animals evolve over time to adapt to their surroundings through the process of natural selection. </p>
<p>The extensive number of manuscripts he filled on these subsequent studies of plants and animals are being <a href="http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/darwin_mss">published online</a> for the first time this month, giving everyone the opportunity to read the great naturalist’s work in its original opaque scrawl. </p>
<p>To understand how Darwin arrived at these conclusions, however, it is necessary to turn to the manuscripts from the first half of his life, which have already been published online as part of the same project. They reveal something that is not nearly so well known about Darwin: he was also a great geologist. Not only that, his geological work was essential to developing his great insight into evolution. </p>
<h2>Charles’ narrow escape</h2>
<p>Darwin’s father Robert intended for his son to train as an Anglican pastor. But after a Bachelor of Arts degree at Cambridge, Darwin spent a summer “geologising" (as he called it) in Wales with <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/sedgwick.html">Adam Sedgwick</a>. Sedgwick, an important 19th-century geologist who was 24 years older, taught him to draw geological maps and how to catalogue and describe specimens. </p>
<p>At the end of this period, the 22-year-old accepted the opportunity of a lifetime to join HMS Beagle to survey South America, and other parts of the world, as the ship’s naturalist. He recorded these five years in detail in his notebooks, which was published a few years later as <a href="http://literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/">The Voyage of the Beagle</a>. He set out heavily influenced not only by Sedgwick but also by <a href="http://www.esp.org/books/lyell/principles/facsimile/">Charles Lyell’s The Principles of Geology (1830)</a>. Lyell argued that the Earth changes gradually over time, a theory that helped Darwin to look at the natural world with fresh eyes. </p>
<p>The Voyage of the Beagle makes a great read. The young Darwin discusses everything from indigenous tribes of Tierra del Fuego to scenery, climate, geology and seasickness. He can tell you which species of lizards are tasty: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>These lizards, when cooked, yield a white meat, which is liked by those whose stomachs soar above all prejudices. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He can also tell you the best way to eat his famous Galapagos tortoises: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While staying in this upper region we lived entirely upon tortoise meat: the breastplate roasted … with the flesh on it, is very good; and the young tortoises make excellent soup; but otherwise the meat to my taste is indifferent. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>High-altitide deductions</h2>
<p>The team visited Chiloé, an island off the coast of Chile, where Darwin saw a thick bed of recent oyster shells 350 feet above the sea. Later, at around 7,000 feet in the Andes of Argentina, he came across something else rather unexpected – the petrified remains of a forest, where the trees had been fossilised in an upright position. Darwin’s explanation was that they initially grew above sea level, were then plunged beneath sea level for a short time, and were then raised above it. Although it is now thought that the trees were fossilised beneath the ash of a volcanic eruption, Darwin’s observations set him on the road towards an important conclusion. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83847/original/image-20150603-2927-1ffn87g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Intellectual heights: The Andes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/armandolobos/14953505066/in/photolist-oMoC5S-jwhtxx-ekt4jc-5YdWLY-kES3Gg-7RE7xY-njJG4o-cScMfw-t6EoNJ-rbZAuo-2GdTTm-h5HM1a-trP8ah-7aoNNe-fnm1XY-cepKuJ-8a6XVr-mPD2Dk-4wkuaE-4QQwXm-4t5hPC-4kgowV-h1RDAj-7RE7sQ-trFQvG-gatBKT-qkQQXF-4t3oCg-rgrJS4-8z4xeY-398ikc-89xwcW-qARzqy-6cp9Cy-rjpRDF-tcyPb7-icyE2Z-oXionc-geAxHX-5X7Evf-dnzwHd-yny8T-e3uBQ7-fcMb5z-e8dWSx-etJvtN-eeW8pG-d3zmwU-jmM93H-mKd9YH">Arabos Life</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His thinking was then solidified a few weeks later when the crew of the Beagle witnessed a very strong earthquake. He wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The crew visited the Chilean coastal town of Conceptión, which was close to the epicenter of the earthquake. It was entirely destroyed, and had been inundated by three successive tsunami waves. What Darwin noticed around the bay was even more astonishing than the fossil shells that he had seen earlier: the level of the land was permanently uplifted after the earthquake. At the nearby island of Santa María, meanwhile, the Beagle’s Captain FitzRoy noticed putrid mussel shells still clinging to the rocks ten feet above the water line. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83837/original/image-20150603-2966-hf5qrx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Concepción after the earthquake, sketched by Beagle crew member, John Clements Wickham.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_voyage_of_HMS_Beagle#/media/File:Remains_of_the_Cathedral_of_Conception_-_1835.png">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Darwin realised is that if the land could raise up a few feet in this way, successive earthquakes could have a much bigger effect. In a letter dated March 1835 to his friend and mentor <a href="http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/henslow/">John Henslow</a>, he states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can now prove that both sides of the Andes have risen in the recent period to a considerable height. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Without the geology …</h2>
<p>Through Lyell’s influence, Darwin had been quick to grasp the impact that slow and gradual change can have on a landscape. This insight helped him to later grasp the full significance of small differences between species, such as the Galapagos finches and tortoises. He finally realised that species were not immutable, and can evolve gradually over time.</p>
<p>Most importantly, his understanding of geology helped him to see that the processes forming the Earth’s crust had taken an extremely long time – and not, as was widely believed in the 19th century, <a href="https://www.lhup.edu/%7Edsimanek/ussher.htm">Archbishop Ussher’s claim</a> that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. During these aeons, different species would have the time to evolve. </p>
<p>It was the passion for detail, so evident in the Beagle notebooks, which informed Darwin’s later work On the Origin of Species and the subsequent studies that are about to appear online. Indeed this love of detail may go too far for some people – after writing up his Beagle notes, Darwin spent eight years studying barnacles for example. But by truly looking at the world, he was able to see what others had not. Above all, he did not set out with a grand theory that he needed to prove. Instead he put together many observations and constructed a grand theory from those tiny details. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ceri Nunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Had the young naturalist not made a great discovery about rock formations in the first half of his career, On the Origin of the Species might never have been written.
Ceri Nunn, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Earth Sciences, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.