Practical Action Blogs

Tonight, as families in the high Andes go to sleep, temperatures will plummet, to as low as -24c.

But they can’t turn up the heating, switch on the electric blanket or boil the kettle for a hot water bottle.

Here, communities live without access to basic services. As the climate in the Andes is changing, families are genuinely having to fight for survival.

This extreme and unprecedented cold has forced the Peruvian government to declare a state of emergency in 16 Peruvian states.

And, as ever, it’s the poorest and most remote communities that are being hit hardest. In the Andes families lives depend on their alpacas, but the deaths of herds will undoubtedly plunge whole communities into a desperate situation.

Practical Action is working with families here to help them adapt: through better access to energy, water and farming techniques.

With support from the European Commission, the Innocent Foundation and other donors we know we are making a difference through simple, small-scale technologies.

But it’s going to require much bigger and bolder commitment, at international level, to help ensure that climate change can be contained and so that the proud mountain people of the high Andes have a future.

Helen Marsh

Campaigner

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Campaigns, Climate Change, Energy, Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.