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Peru's alpine herders revive ancient technologies to face climate change in the future

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Shepherdess Narcisa Cornelio (R) and her daughter Nancy Condor rest in front of Hualcan glacier in Huascaran natural reserve in Ancash, Peru. The country’s glaciers are shrinking in the face of climate change, and the country is reviving old techniques to keep the land alive File photo: Reuters

With their alpine grasslands shrinking due to erratic rainfall and glacier retreat, herders in Peru’s central Andes have decided that the future lies in reviving the past.

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To improve access to water and save their livestock, indigenous communities in the villages of Canchayllo and Miraflores have restored abandoned dams, reservoirs and canals that date back over 3,000 years.

Two years on from completion of the project – supported by The Mountain Institute (TMI), a US-based non-profit – there are more and better quality pastures for sheep, cattle and alpaca to graze, and milk, meat, and crop yields have risen.

The project’s success, benefiting 9,600 people in the Nor Yauyos Cochas Landscape Reserve, has raised hopes for thousands of highland communities in Peru and elsewhere who are facing similar climate pressures, said Florencia Zapata of TMI, which works with mountain communities.

It could also have far-reaching impacts along the desert coast, home to almost 70 per cent of the population, which receives less than 2 per cent of Peru’s available water.

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“Water that most of the population depends on comes mainly from the mountains. So, we need to take care of (that water),” Zapata, who oversaw the project, said in a phone interview.

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