I chose to do my internship in Puno, Peru which is located in the central Andes at the very southern border that Peru shares with Bolivia. This city of 200,000 is situated on Lake Titicaca, a glacial lake that is 250 meters deep and 190 km long, with a catchment area of 58,000km squared. It is also the highest navegable lake in the world, sitting at 12,507 feet above sea level. I approached a local non-governmental organization called Instituto Peruano de Investigacion Quechua Aymara Jatha-Muhu, (Jatha and Muhu are the Quechua and Aymara names for “seed”, respectively) to ask them if they could host me. Their current focus project is the management and improvement of raising guinea pigs for commercial sale and household food security. However, they also work on various projects throughout the Province of Puno, especially in Moho Department, on the northern edges of Lake Titicaca. They have field representatives in at least 8 different small villages where they help with water management, including the topic of water scarcity, sustainability projects, agricultural management and ensuring that these projects meet the needs of the people, economically, spiritually, and environmentally. I will be visiting at least 3-5 of these villages during my six weeks here to do both key leader interviews with the employees at Jatha-Muhu, with the alcaldes or local mayors, and focus groups with a mix of men and women agriculturalists. My research focuses on the feasibility and applicability of an ecosystem approach to sustainability projects in this province within indigenous Quechua and Aymara communities.
I started out the week flying into Arequipa, and staying for two days to acclimate to the elevation. Most people take diomox when they come to the Andes, but I chose to do it the hard way. I have experienced headaches, vomiting and light headedness since I arrived- classic symptoms of altitude sickness. I then spent two days traveling through Colca Canyon as a way to familiarize myself with rural living and many of the water management techniques that the indigenous people have been practicing for millennia. On the way from Arequipa to Colca Canyon, I observed wild and domesticated camelids, endangered Andean condor, chinchilla, Andean hawks, and many other indigenous wildlife. I also took notes on the human built environment: corrals for domestic camelids, alpaca and llamas, are often situated near bofedales, which are like high altitude oases or wetlands. These areas are host to the most nutritious fodder for camelids and vicunas can also be seen taking advantage of these little green plants that are ubiquitous in these wetlands. These wetlands are fed by both rainwater and mountain snow melt. These bofedales occur around 4200-5000 m.s.l. Another aspect of indigenous water management is the “andenes” or terraced mountainsides. Most indigenous settlements are located in the bottoms of narrow valleys, where there is not enough arable land, so farmers have built terraces all the way up the sides of the valley. However, this is not simply an adaptation to a lack of land but moreover, it creates microclimates in each parcel of terraced land, it helps conserve water and soil, as well as improving water filtration through the soil. Interestingly enough, as Puno grows and urban sprawl continues, you can see where the terraces have been built over in favor of urban housing.
Through my internship advisor, I learned that there are two basic types of community organization for water and land management here. One is a system of parcialidades where each family owns a plot of land and their parcels may touch one another but each family farms their parcel of land independently. The second type of organization is called “suyo” and it is an ancient type of social organization in which mutual aid figures prominently in all aspects of life. In indigenous Andean agriculture, suyo means that the community owns a certain number of hectares which they farm as a group, which also creates a certain amount of safety from risk. For instance, if, during the season, a family plants potatoes and quinoa and corn, and one or more of those crops fails, the other families who had a better season will come to their assistance and vice versa in other years. This is an example of “reminding” people of their traditional practices that may have been buried in colonial history.
I also learned from walking around with my host in Puno, that despite have one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, that citizens of Puno have to boil their drinking water. Also, if you go down to the pier near the lake, where they have small paddleboats and families spend a few hours on the weekend, because wastewater from the city is not treated, green algae has invaded the parts of the Lake closest to the shores of Puno. Ducks still paddle around in it, but the lake trout eaten in this region don’t inhabit this area and the pollution also threatens the famous Titicaca lake toad.
On Monday, I begin my interview with the employees in the Instituto Jathu Muhu to see what their approach to sustainability is and how they perceive the idea of ecosystems approach for their projects and how applicable it could be. I also will be traveling to a small village in Puno Province, accompanying a Jatha-Muhu field representative and University of the Altiplano anthropology student to check in on how the organizations’ projects are going. I will also be conducting focus groups in this village, as I will be staying two or three days (sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag- next to an alpaca I hope!)