Andes panorama/ Indian pries conducts blessing | Music | 00:00 |
| CORCORAN: They gather for a blessing from the mountain's traditional guardians. | 00:17 |
Trekkers on mountain | The Aymara Indians say to ascend this 6000 metre peak without absolution is to incur the wrath of the gods. | 00:28 |
| Music | 00:37 |
| AYMARA PRIEST: They're not angry with us, they're telling us something. | 00:42 |
Aymara priest | We have to share with nature. | 00:48 |
Trekkers on mountain | We should not pollute anymore. If we don't keep contaminating we can live a bit longer. | 00:53 |
| Music | 01:03 |
| CORCORAN: On the arid western side of the Andes mountain range, snow and ice mean water - and water is life. Now this icy realm is melting before their very eyes. | 01:10 |
Priest conducts open air mass on mountain | PRIEST: Dear brethren, beloved ones before God our Father. How big is the sun that accompanied us on part of this climb? And what altitude! You know how we climbed up here. God, how grand you are! | 01:28 |
| CORCORAN: But their prayers remain unanswered. | 01:53 |
River | Music | 01:56 |
Driving Chacaltaya | CORCORAN: The Aymara call this place Chacaltaya - meaning "cold road". In modern times Bolivians proudly boasted this glacier, at nearly 5 and a half thousand metres, was the world's highest ski run. But no longer. | 02:10 |
Abandoned ski resort | These days it looks more like a resort on the moon. | 02:31 |
Corcoran walks with Edson Ramirez to glacier | Glaciologist Dr. Edson Ramirez guides us toward a sad sliver of ice. | 02:38 |
| EDSON: This is Chacaltaya. CORCORAN: That's all that's left? EDSON: Absolutely. | 02:45 |
| CORCORAN: How many years before this is gone? EDSON: I think that only one to two years. | 02:51 |
Ski lodge. Corcoran and Edson look at photos. | CORCORAN: Inside the lodge, memories of bygone days, when Chacaltaya was a playground for Bolivia's wealthy. | 03:02 |
| EDSON: We can see Chacaltaya glacier in 1940. CORCORAN: The ice used to go right down to the road at the bottom. EDSON: Yes. This is the road. CORCORAN: So when did people stop skiing here? EDSON: I think around 1998. And we are here. | 03:11 |
Ext. Ski lodge | CORCORAN: Now should be the peak skiing season - yet there are only rocks. | 03:32 |
Corcoran and Edson walk to glacier | At this altitude, there's only half the oxygen of sea level. For the unacclimatised, it's hard enough just breathing, let alone attempting a downhill run. But it's all in a day's work for Edson Ramirez. | 03:41 |
Glacier on mountain | Bolivia is losing more than just its only ski field. Small, high altitude glaciers act as water reservoirs for millions of people who live in arid regions of the Andes. | 04:01 |
| CORCORAN: How many other glaciers are melting like this? EDSON: I think that it's around 80% of the glaciers on the Cordillera Real, because Chacaltaya is representative of this kind of glaciers. | 04:16 |
Edson walks on Chacaltaya and examines ice | CORCORAN: Edson Ramirez and a team of French scientists have been documenting Chacaltaya's decline for 15 years. At first their observations were treated with scepticism. Now, their glacier has become a cause-celebre of the international global warming debate. EDSON: We can observe this kind of melting since the 80s. | 04:30 |
Edson. Super: Edson Ramirez | It's a dramatic melt of this kind of glacier - the small glaciers. | 04:54 |
Abandoned ski lift | CORCORAN: In 1998 when this ski lift finally shut down, Chacaltaya was still 15 metres thick, and losing one metre a year. That rate has since accelerated dramatically. | 05:02 |
Edson measures ice | EDSON: As you can see we have only 3 or 4 metres. | 05:20 |
| CORCORAN: How old is the ice we can see underneath here? | 05:25 |
| EDSON: I think that it's maybe it's around 18 thousand. CORCORAN: 18 thousand years? EDSON: Maybe, yes. | 05:29 |
Edson | CORCORAN: How many years before all the glaciers around La Paz are gone? EDSON: Around 20 years. CORCORAN: 20 years? EDSON: 20 years. CORCORAN: And they'll all be gone. EDSON: Yes. | 05:38 |
Mountain shot/La Paz/El Alto | Music | 05:48 |
| CORCORAN: For two million people living under the mountains in the cities of La Paz and El Alto - that means losing up to 60% of their water, which comes from glaciers. | 05:54 |
Mountains | Music | 06:06 |
| CORCORAN: It's a huge dilemma for the entire Andes region, potentially effecting tens of millions of people. | 06:11 |
| EDSON: It's a critical problem - it's the same problem for Peru, Ecuador and Colombia - all the Andes. | 06:21 |
Edson | CORCORAN: So we're talking about the drinking water for millions of people - just going? EDSON: Yeah. | 06:33 |
La Paz | Music | 06:43 |
| CORCORAN: In downtown La Paz, there's no sense of a looming crisis, nor is there any evidence of water restrictions. | 06:57 |
People hosing | Music | 07:06 |
| CORCORAN: With five governments in just five years, crisis management is the norm - dealing with today's problems, without worrying about next year. | 07:14 |
El Alto | Music | 07:24 |
| CORCORAN: But in La Paz's twin city - the vast slums of El Alto -- it's a very different matter. This is home for more than a million, mainly indigenous, people. | 07:29 |
| As changing weather patterns cause crops to fail on the Andes high plain, they've been drawn to the city in search of work. The population is set to double in the next decade. Water - or lack of it - has always been an issue here. | 07:42 |
Berna Cabrera | CABRERA: There's nowhere to get water. They bring it from the Chocaya River and that water is dirty and they bring it here to sell in the community where they live. | 08:01 |
Cabrera does laundry | CORCORAN: For Berna Cabrera life is a daily struggle to provide for her family. | 08:25 |
Cabrera connects hose to tap | After seven years - and at great expense - she finally saved enough to have a tap installed in her home. It often runs dry. | 08:34 |
| CABRERA: When we have our communal meetings we talk about water. | 08:44 |
Cabrera | We don't have water pipes because we don't have water. The mayor says, why are we going to build water pipes if we don't have water? | 08:49 |
Cabrera takes tea to family | CORCORAN: A single mother - Berna Cabrera works as a nanny down in La Paz to support three generations of her family. | 09:03 |
| She considers herself fortunate in having a job. Still, family discussion often centres on where they will get that basic necessity needed to sustain life. | 09:12 |
| CABRERA: When it rains, for us it's pure happiness because the water pours down from the gutters. | 09:24 |
Cabrera | We collect it in containers. We put it into our wash tubs and with that water the children wash and we eat. | 09:30 |
Cabrera at community meeting | CORCORAN: Like most Bolivians, Berna Cabrera never expected much help from government. She attends a typical community meeting. | 09:41 |
Communal tap | They're worried that there's just one tap for 200 people and their livestock. | 09:51 |
| Water is already expensive, and with the glaciers melting, everyone is acutely aware that the price will rise even further. Some fear water will soon cost more than soft drink. | 10:01 |
Man with Coca Cola bottles | MAN: In the absence of water -- Coca Cola! To wash...to drink! We empty the bottles quickly. We need more Coca Cola, right missus? What are we going to do? There's no water. | 10:16 |
Children | CABRERA: No government has ever been concerned about us. | 10:35 |
| No one has ever worried about water and no one has ever come to ask about our problems with water. No one. Absolutely no one. | 10:38 |
Edson and Corcoran look at satellite photos | CORCORAN: But a few people do worry. High above the city, Dr. Ramirez studies satellite imagery, plotting the glaciers' decline, and the looming water crisis. | 10:53 |
| EDSON: That's La Paz and El Alto. | 11:04 |
| CORCORAN: And when is the - if you like - the demand going to exceed the supply? EDSON: Oh that's a very big problem, because it's 2009. CORCORAN: So in two years time... EDSON: Yes. CORCORAN: ...you'll start having a problem? EDSON: Yes. | 11:07 |
| CORCORAN: And from then it will just get worse? EDSON: Yes. | 11:25 |
Llamas | Music | 11:29 |
| CORCORAN: Andes glaciers have all been in slow decline since a mini Ice Age here about 300 years ago. | 11:33 |
Mountains | So what's causing the accelerated meltdown? Edson Ramirez says man-made carbon emissions are a factor. The question is - to what extent? | 11:42 |
| EDSON: What we haven't been able to do so far is measure the proportion of human contribution to global warming. | 11:56 |
Edson | But we do know that the effects of human activities accelerate it and play the role of a catalyst in this cycle. | 12:09 |
Clouds/church | CORCORAN: He says the glaciers have been hit hardest by an unprecedented number of El Ninos -- the complex weather cycle triggered by warming and cooling of water at opposite ends of the Pacific Ocean. | 12:23 |
Cloud shrouded mountains | EDSON: The hot air that's in Australia moves towards the Peruvian Pacific coast. | 12:42 |
| The effect means for the Andean Mountains, especially in Bolivia, there's low cloud, and consequently low rainfall and high radiation | 12:51 |
Edson | and so the glacier as we see here loses its capacity to reflect radiation. | 13:09 |
Mountains | Music | 13:17 |
| CORCORAN: Low rainfall means less snow, and it is snow which both replenishes the glacier and protects the ice from the harsh sun at such high altitude. | 13:20 |
Glaciers. Pan across to electricity wires | Without the glaciers, scientists worry that the Andes highlands will have to depend on just 400 millimetres of rain a year. | 13:32 |
Dam | Then there's the problem of electricity. Sitting atop the spine of the Andes, this hydro-electric dam generates 80% of La Paz's power. It relies mainly on glacier runoff to drive the turbines. | 13:43 |
Cascading water | Music | 14:00 |
| CORCORAN: No water - no electricity. | 14:06 |
| GONZALES: The system of water provision for El Alto | 14:14 |
Gonzales | might collapse in the next two or three years. | 14:16 |
Power lines with glacier in background | CORCORAN: Javier Gonzales is a government climate change planner. He says Bolivia - the poorest country in South America - can't afford to build massive rain catchment dams. The task in this earthquake prone zone is too complex and expensive. GONZALES: The national greenhouse gas emissions | 14:20 |
Gonzales. Super: | is about 0.03 % of the global emissions, but we have to bear the consequences of global warming. | 14:47 |
River | CORCORAN: Bolivia, he says, will pay a heavy price for a problem created by the industrialised world. GONZALES: I'm very, very pessimistic of the situation at the international level. | 14:59 |
| We know very well that the solution is through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But not every country is committed to do this. | 15:12 |
Gonzales | The problem is being produced by industrial nations, and we are facing the problems - we are facing the consequences of that. CORCORAN: It doesn't seem fair. GONZALES: It's not fair at all. | 15:25 |
Drumming, dancing ceremony | Music | 15:38 |
| CORCORAN: Barely an hour's drive away from the parched streets of El Alto, the Aymara celebrate the life giving power of water. | 15:48 |
| It's a festival marking the end of autumn and the harvesting of their crops. | 16:01 |
Lake Titicaca | They live on the shores of Titicaca - | 16:12 |
| this 8,300 square kilometre expanse is one of the world's great fresh water lakes. | 16:14 |
Ordonez takes photos of ceremony | Recording the ceremony is Victor Hugo Ordonez. | 16:25 |
| ORDONEZ: Obviously climate change is contributing to the reduction of the glaciers and to the lack of water. | 16:32 |
Ordonez | So I think there's a crisis and it hasn't been resolved up to now. | 16:43 |
Ordonez at lake taking photos | CORCORAN: A member of Bolivia's now defunct Olympic ski team, he runs an eco-tourism company. More than 25 rivers feed from glaciers into the lake, which has just reached its annual high water mark. | 16:55 |
| Victor Ordonez worries that as the glaciers melt the lake level will drop, and Titicaca's fragile environment will collapse, along with the livelihoods of these communities. | 17:11 |
| ORDONEZ: For Lake Titicaca and the ecosystems that go towards the valleys, there's a great problem, for Lake Titicaca is one of the main sources of water for these regions. | 17:27 |
Lake Titicaca | CORCORAN: Despite these concerns, one short term fix being mooted is to draw drinking water from the Lake. But Edson Ramirez says this would create even more problems. | 17:47 |
Corcoran and Edson look at satellite photos | CORCORAN: Why can't you just pump water from Titicaca - down to... | 18:01 |
| EDSON: Because the quality of this water is not so good for human consumption. CORCORAN: Why, the salt? EDSON: The salinity, mines. | 18:07 |
| CORCORAN: Contamination? EDSON: Yeah. | 18:16 |
Abandoned mine with mountain in b/g | Music | 18:18 |
| CORCORAN: Bolivia has a centuries-long tradition of mining. It's a lucrative, but deadly, business for workers. Find an old mine head, and invariably, not far away, will be a lonely cemetery. | 18:21 |
| Music | 18:38 |
River/ Dam | CORCORAN: Now as if the Bolivian Government didn't have enough to worry about, there's another potential problem. The runoff from nearby glaciers come down into this dam, which forms part of the La Paz water supply. In fact, it provides some of the drinking water for the city. | 18:46 |
Abandoned mine | The only problem is, they built the dam right next to this abandoned mine, which no one wants to take responsibility for. | 19:01 |
Toxic sludge in water | Contaminants have been flowing into this water supply for quite a while. The authorities say they've been able to deal with this problem - they filter them out downstream. The big fear now is that as the run off from the glaciers decrease in the coming years, the concentration levels of contaminants are going to increase - and they won't be able to handle that problem. CORCORAN: Why can't you simply | 19:09 |
Gonzales. Javier Gonzales | have the mine demolished and have the site decontaminated? GONZALES: It's difficult to deal with the sector, with the mining sector in Bolivia. The mining sector is a very strong sector in Bolivia, and environment is not as important yet. (laughs) | 19:31 |
El Alto faces | CORCORAN: No one is laughing in El Alto. For these people, global warming is more than just an abstract political debate. World leaders can argue about the cause, and establish a complex system of carbon emissions trading. But Bolivians face the very real risk of becoming casualties of climate change. | 19:50 |
Cabrera | CABRERA: If I work, thank God I have a little money, but some people here don't have any.. | 20:17 |
Women walk | People are really poor, very poor. They can't buy even a jug of water. That's how extreme the poverty is here. | 20:25 |
Melting ice | Music | 20:42 |
| EDSON: We can't change this phenomenon. | 20:45 |
Edson | CORCORAN: It's too late? EDSON: It's too late. CORCORAN: They're gone? EDSON: They're gone. CORCORAN: All of them? EDSON: All of the glaciers. It's very sad. | 20:48 |
Mountain/ llama | Music | 20:56 |
Sacrifice ceremony | CORCORAN: Up on the mountain the Aymara priest offers up the foetus of a llama to the cleansing flame, sacrificed to the Earth Goddess Pachamama. Now he - and the people of the Andes wait for their prayers to be answered. | 21:06 |
Credits: | Reporter: Mark Corcoran Cameras: David Martin Rodrigo Aliaga Sound: David Verrecchia Bernarda Villagomez Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen Producer: Vivien Altman Production Company: ABC Australia, Foreign Correspondent | 21:27
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