Guardians of the glaciers

The Phinaya community is located 4,830 metres above sea level. Is the highest town near the glacier Quelccaya in Cusco, Peru.

Alpacas grazing in wetlands produced by the melting of the glacier Quelccaya in Cusco, Peru.

‘The cold waves are much harder to bear now, getting lower because of climate change. There is almost no rain, there is no water, the animals die, it is worrying in the heights of the Andes’, says Salome (61), one of the community elders, posing for a portrait at his cabin in Cusco, Peru.

Exaltacion Chuquichampi (58) holds ice detached from the tropical glacier Quelccaya in Cusco, Peru.

Teresa Mendoza (46) observes the retreat of the Quelccaya glacier, where she used to play as a child in Cusco, Peru.

One of the consequences of climate change is displacement. People migrate after very cold temperatures, droughts and floods, leaving communities with fewer inhabitants and a loss of ancestral Andean Knowledge in Cusco, Peru.

Domitila Cono (30) takes care of ‘Rafaelito’, a six- week-old orphaned sheep. Due to the frost caused by climate change, many animals do not survive in the high altitudes of the Peruvian Andes in Cusco, Peru.

Glaciers function as vast aquifer reservoirs, continually releasing water as they melt. The people living downstream use this water for drinking and basic hygiene, as well as to irrigate their fields and maintain the wetlands where their alpacas and llamas graze in Cusco, Peru.

Two alpaca breeders make an offering with coca leaves as a symbol of respect and in order to balance the damage done by man to the ‘pachamama’ (Mother Earth in the Quechua language) in Cusco, Peru.

‘I remember the peak was huge. It looked beautiful, but now everything is gone. There isn’t much snow left, so what are we going to do when the snow has gone? We will run out of water’. Quelccaya is currently receding at a rate of 60 metres (195 feet) a year, and could disappear in the next 30 years in Cusco, Peru.

Ice constitutes the second largest source of freshwater on the planet and 70 percent of the world’s tropical glaciers are found in Peru.

Located in Cusco, the Quelccaya Ice Cap is the largest tropical glacier in the world, covering an area equivalent to more than 9,000 soccer fields. However, due to accelerated melting it is receding by 60 meters (195 feet) a year and some studies have determined that it will disappear in the next 30 years if global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

As the climate crisis takes hold, the ice caps melts and the inhabitants of the communities, who live on the slopes and close to the glaciers, are directly impacted by the retreating.