In today’s New York Times, a story documents the plight of the Uru-Murato people, an indigenous group that had lived off the bounty of Lake Poopó in Bolivia, until it’s waters dried up in 2015.
After surviving decades of water diversion and cyclical El Niño droughts in the Andes, Lake Poopó basically disappeared in December. The ripple effects go beyond the loss of livelihood for the Quispes and hundreds of other fishing families, beyond the migration of people forced to leave homes that are no longer viable.
The vanishing of Lake Poopó threatens the very identity of the Uru-Murato people, the oldest indigenous group in the area. They adapted over generations to the conquests of the Inca and the Spanish, but seem unable to adjust to the abrupt upheaval climate change has caused.
Similarly, many island residents around the world are in danger of becoming climate change refugees. In 2014, Jennifer Newell, curator of Pacific Ethnography, and Tina Stege of the Marshallese Educational Initiative, discussed how island life is being affected by the rising seas: