An American in Lima

Back in December, msnbc.com published a photo story on Qoyllur Rit’i and global warming, with photos by El Fotógrafo and captions by yours truly.
I neglected to provide the link to that slide show, which includes some of EF’s strongest images of the dangerous (and endangered) glacier pilgrimage, so here it is, belatedly: “Peru’s Disappearing Holy Glacier.”
This photo, [...]

[Read more →]

American Lara DeVries, executive director of the Light & Leadership Initiative, an NGO based in the Ate-Vitarte district of Lima, talks about the high cost of water for shantytown residents in this MSNBC video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Lara helped me coordinate the NBC Nightly News team’s coverage of water [...]

[Read more →]

Jorge Recharte, Andes program director for the Mountain Institute, eloquently explains the special bond between Peru’s people and her mountains. This relationship has shaped 5,000 years of culture in both the coast and the sierra and will determine Peru’s future,  says Recharte in this video featured on msnbc.com:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the [...]

[Read more →]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Here’s the video of the report that aired on NBC Nightly News on December 8.

[Read more →]

Tonight NBC Nightly News airs a special report on Peru’s melting glaciers and their downstream effects. (Click here for times and stations across the United States.)

NBC Nightly News Chief Environmental News Correspondent Anne Thompson interviews glaciologist Marco Zapata at Pastoruri Glacier, Oct. 2009 (photo c. Barbara Drake)

Tune in to see footage of dying Pastoruri Glacier and to [...]

[Read more →]

A heads-up to viewers in the United States: My sources at NBC Nightly News tell me that an investigative report on Peru’s pending water crisis will air on the show next Tuesday, Dec. 8, at 6:30 p.m. EST in many states. (Click here for state-by-state air times.) 

NBC Nightly News crew films Anne Thompson’s interview with community leaders [...]

[Read more →]

 Once upon a time, the easiest way for a visitor to touch ice  in Peru was to climb the tourist trail to Pastoruri Glacier, a flat-topped glacier 70 km south of Huaraz. Roads from the highway made the glacier easily accessible to daytrippers, and even though its peak is a staggering 5,200 meters above sea [...]

[Read more →]

These two kids live near Upis in southern Peru, where children are dying of extreme cold brought on by climate change. More deaths are predicted for August, typically the coldest month of the year in the high Andes (photo c. Barbara Drake 2008)

Peru is finally acknowledging that the humanitarian crisis caused by extreme cold in the Andes isn’t [...]

[Read more →]

Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson gives two good reasons why loss of Peru’s glaciers is “alarming”; July 7 Adapting to a World without Glaciers, Lima (photo by Jorge Vera 2009)

By Barbara R. Drake
LIMA, PERU: Peru’s Minister of the Environment Antonio Brack Egg told international glacier experts and other climate specialists last week that Peru cannot [...]

[Read more →]

El Fotografo took this shot during the drive to Huaraz last week. It’s of the Callejón de Huaylas (”Alley of Huaylas”), a valley in the Ancash Region in the north-central highlands of Peru. Glaciers all along the mountains there are melting due to rapid climate change.

Mt. Caullaraju; photo c. Jorge Vera 2009

Shooting with a Hasselblad enabled EF [...]

[Read more →]

Water Is the Source of Life (Jorge Vera 2009)

[Read more →]

A girl in Pucarumi carries her little sister on her back. At least six children under age 5 in her valley have died from extreme cold since March, my trekking guide tells me. (Sept. 2008 photo by Barbara Drake)

Spoke to Alberto last night, our guide at Qoyllur Rit’i and around the Mount Ausangate area.
He told El [...]

[Read more →]

photo by Barbara Drake 2009

We visited this lake in Huascaran National Park last Sunday. The turquoise-blue water is fed by glacier streams. Lots of trout in the lakes.

[Read more →]

Dog at Yungay National Cemetery; Mount Huascaran in background (photo by Barbara Drake 2009)

 Last Sunday, El Fotógrafo, El Híjo and I toured the cemetery above the buried town of Yungay, about 30 miles north of Huaraz. We were with a group of scientists and historians taking part in a glacier adaptation conference, and there couldn’t have [...]

[Read more →]