Glaciers Are Almost Gone in Peru, Now 2 Sisters Save Drought-Hit Community With Rain Water

Peru’s glaciers have shrunk significantly in the past four decades, causing water to become a scarce resource for over 200,000 people in the Ayacucho region. So two Quechua sisters decided to act – building reservoirs to harvest rainwater for their community.

The sisters, Marcela and Magdalena Machaca, are both agricultural engineers who first built a reservoir in 1995 through their organization, the Bartolome Aripaylla Association. Since their first reservoir, they’ve built over 120 others, providing the region with more than 130 million cubic meters of water for both personal and agricultural use.

“The lagoons play the role that the frozen mountain-tops used to play,” says Marcela, adding that the Quechua people – Peru’s largest indigenous group – consider the reservoirs sacred. “Our communities are the protectors of water and we are proud of that.”

“If we didn’t have these lagoons now, we could not guarantee water for the whole population. They’re completely vital,” adds Dersi Zevallos, a coordinator with SUNASS, Peru’s water and sanitation regulator.

Gustavo Solano, project coordinator at the Peru-based Association for Investigation and Integral Development, which looks into natural solutions to climate change, says that other areas in Latin America could learn from the sisters, as projects like this are crucial in surviving climate change. Solano’s association has itself begun replicating the reservoirs last year in a project supervised by the Quechua sisters in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. According to Solano, the locals of the region – which suffers from drought – have since then identified over 20 restored water sources that were previously dried-out.