Andean Religious Responses to Climate Change and Human Displacement: The Case of Huaytapallana Mountain and Glacier

• In Event: Religion, Climate Change and People on the Move: Latin America and South Asia

Abstract

My presentation addresses two major impacts of climate change: a) internal population displacement, b) and associated symbolic and ritual responses to glacier retreat and water stress. To illustrate these impacts, I draw on anthropological data collected during the last seven years on the effects of climate change on the tropical Huaytapallana glacier in Peru, which at present has lost 40% of its volume. I also address the ways climate change is altering the economic, social and religious lives of nearby indigenous and peasant populations. I give attention to growing population pressures from in-migration as well as increasing water stress, now generating social conflicts between water consumers in rural and urban areas. Of specific relevance are processes of social and religious adaptation to new conditions brought on by climate change, visible in the biannual pilgrimages to the mountain, and which involve a range of actors, including governmental and non-governmental organizations, the Catholic Church and regional Archbishop, displaced populations, and indigenous religious practitioners, and their perceptions of llama and alpaca pastoralists said to live underneath the glacier. Finally, I discuss ways I am extending the geographical scope of this research to include two major watersheds: the Perene Valley in the Amazon rain forest and the Rimac watershed, which provides water to the city of Lima with 10 million inhabitants, where water stress is currently affecting poorer residents.

Author

• Teófilo Altamirano