Indigenous people hope for Bolivian lake to return

For many generations, the homeland of the Indigenous Uru people wasn't land at all: It was the brackish waters of Lake Poopo. Now what was Bolivia's second-largest lake is gone. It dried up about five years ago, victim of shrinking glaciers, water diversions for farming and contamination.

And the Uru of Lake Poopo are left clinging to its salt-crusted former shoreline in three small settlements, 635 people scrabbling for ways to make a living. The lake, which years back was 2,337 kilometers (84 km long by 55 km wide), has now been reduced to a wetland.

On a recent day, the Uru — "people of the water"-  arrived with offerings of flowers, wine and sweets so that the body of water would return. These Indigenous people from the highlands of the Bolivian altiplano were praying to Pachamama to return Lake Poopó. The Urus and nearby Aymara communities believe that the lake has a cycle and every 50 years the lake is filled again, according to the director of the Center for Ecology and Andean Peoples (CEPA), Limbert Sanchez.

According to their calculations, the water will return in 2026. Local experts say the disappearance of this vital resource for the local communities is a result of climate change and the fall out effects of industrial activities such as mining pollution. Almost 85% of the water that remains stagnant in Poopó Lake evaporates very quickly, Sanchez said. Sanchez explained that the problem of the lake was a problem many years in the making.

"I think that if we don't do the hydraulic work or we don't do the regulations, and don't make use of the water of the Desaguadero River, it's difficult. If there's no budget, if there are no projects that permit for a comprehensive management, it's difficult," he said.

"We cannot depend (solely) on the Pachamama, on the rain."

Meanwhile, Cristina Mamani Choque, from a nearby community, was told by her grandparents that the lake always dried and every 50 years the water returned. She's hoping that is the case. "It hasn't rained at all this year. Nothing has been produced," she said.