Indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon combat droughts and floods

Luis Fernando Pumuy turns on the spigot outside of his house and splashes water onto most of his body, trying to cool off from the unrelenting heat in the Indigenous community of Asunción del Quiquibey, where the Mosetén and Tsimané ethnic groups both live. Even though the water now flows out of the spigot with plenty of pressure, rainfall in this community is often only a fleeting joy. Water is commonly scarce in many Indigenous communities in the Amazon due to droughts. When the rain returns, floods cause additional suffering. These Amazonian Indigenous communities flip back and forth between these two extremes: The droughts make it difficult to find water to survive, but flooding from periods of heavy rain can threaten many modest homes.

When water is scarce or contaminated, or when people have unequal or no access to it, tensions can increase between communities or countries. For this reason, the theme that the United Nations established for World Water Day 2024 (March 22) was “Water for Peace.”

“When we cooperate on water, we create a positive ripple effect — fostering harmony, generating prosperity and building resilience to shared challenges,” said the United Nations in a statement.

The residents of Asunción del Quiquibey have come to understand this very well. For many years, the community has suffered due to the difficulty of adapting to the unpredictable behavior of water in the environment. The town has needed to move its location on four occasions due to the Quiquibey River’s continual flooding, which has devastated the town in the last 10 years. This misfortune left the community without a school, health care clinic and several houses. The residents, who are now reinventing the town, hope to avoid another move. Their most recent was only two years ago.

Little by little, the 36 families of Asunción del Quiquibey have moved to the highest area in their territory. They carried their few belongings — along with a sense of hope — on their shoulders. Despite the setbacks, the members of the community are not sad. The water they have is not drinkable, but they value every drop of liquid that reaches the spigots of each of their humble houses through pipes. The source of their water is located one-and-a-half hours from this Amazonian community, which belongs to the municipality of Rurrenabaque in the department of Beni.

The drought is most severe between August and September: The water level is low, and navigation becomes complicated. To travel, a person must board a boat in downtown Rurrenabaque and navigate for three hours through whirlwinds, strong currents, several mounds of sand and a biodiverse landscape.

Alejandro Caimani is the community’s corregidor, its highest Indigenous authority, similar to a mayor, and he described the pounding waves of rain that he has experienced. Showing his new small house, he said this was the fourth time he had moved to a different house because Asunción del Quiquibey is located in an unsuitable area. The leader added that on two occasions, the floods destroyed the community’s sports fields and schools. These tragedies happened because, according to him, the land is unforgiving as it falls into the tranquil waters of the Quiquibey River.

“Water is very important to us, and we are lucky enough to be able to enjoy it. We take care of it because it is part of our family. Using water, we cook, we bathe [and] we boil it to drink it. Imagine life without water; we don’t want that. Water is life, and there is a lot of life here,” Caimani said while sitting in the shelter where meetings are held in Asunción del Quiquibey.

Although there is at this point an excess of water due to the heavy rain, access to it is one of the main weaknesses that contributed to the community’s fourth move. The move is gradual, since some families still live in the area exposed to the flooding of the Quiquibey River. The community’s old water collection system was at risk due to the soil erosion that is caused by the river. “Each time the river floods, it affects us through the loss of our territory. As a community, we are working to move the community once more and get to safety,” said Caimani.

Amid this situation, the Indigenous community came together and made improvements to their water system (which includes a 5,000-liter or 1,320-gallon water tank), rebuilt the water collection system with a lid that prevents soil and mud from entering it, improved the adduction network — with 934 linear meters (more than half a mile) of pipes — to the new community and reinforced the 85-meter (279-foot) ravine path with a steel cable.

The aftermath of a flood

In just over two months, Bolivia went from a harsh drought that decreased the surface areas of its lakes and the volumes of its rivers, causing unprecedented heat waves and forest fires, to excessive rains that, in February 2024, surpassed typical records of several recent decades. Official figures give an account of more than 40 deaths between November 2023 and February 2024, dozens of evacuations, flooded towns and significant damage to infrastructure.

Ana Mendoza of Bolivia’s Hydrology and Meteorology Service (Senamhi) attributed these factors to climate change. The specialist explained that the El Niño phenomenon normally causes droughts in western Bolivia and that it seemed that this would last longer, but the opposite occurred. This is why the rains, which generally reach the Brazilian Amazon, also reached the Amazon in both Peru and Ecuador this time, which is unusual.

The story of the community of Puerto Yumani, which is made up of members of the Tacana ethnic group and belongs to the municipality of Rurrenabaque, is similar to that of Asunción del Quiquibey. After the flooding in 2015, this town decided to strengthen itself against adverse weather events. They suffer from floods every year, and although they have not yet lost human lives, they have lost crops and animals. For this reason, in June 2023, they built an elevated shelter. Puerto Yumani is 274 meters (about 900 feet) above sea level, and the new structure is 5 meters (about 16 feet) above the ground.

Practical Action, a nonprofit organization that created alliances with Indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon and with the mayor’s office of Rurrenabaque, provided the resources for the materials and members of the community got to work.

The structure is known as the “Ark of Puerto Yumani.” Its goal is to provide safety to the 24 families in the community in the event of another flood like the one that struck them in early 2015. This natural disaster found them very vulnerable and left them hungry and ill.

Óscar Cabrera, who was Bolivia’s deputy minister of civil defense in 2015, recalls that during that time, the floods harmed more than 1,000 families, especially in rural areas of the Bolivian Amazon.

In Puerto Yumani, water now reaches every house, all of which were built with locally sourced timber. Oscar Libay Chamairo, who belongs to the Tacana ethnic group, is the president of the Water Committee of Puerto Yumani. He explained how all of the community’s residents have managed to have access to water.

“Before, we shared the water among families. The water that we had was from the municipality; it arrived to us in tanks. They cut it off from us two years ago, and now we are beginning to use the water that comes from pumping. A well was drilled to be able to extract water. Even though it is not potable, it is water that helps us very much to wash clothing, to cook or also to clean ourselves,” Libay said.

The “Ark of Puerto Yumani” has become a meeting spot for the community. It acts as a shelter for any potential emergency. Ruti Chao, an elderly woman from the town, was extremely focused at one meeting. She took notes on everything that she could. At the front of the room were experts who would provide advice to residents in case the community experiences another disaster. Chao’s granddaughter sat next to her, playing with stones and soil. She did not distract her grandmother. “We don’t want to suffer like [we did] years ago [in 2014], when the flood left us without houses, without our things, without everything. It was a very difficult year,” Chao said.

In late 2014 and early 2015, Bolivia faced one of the worst floods in its recent history. It affected, above all, the communities in the Amazon. Many towns were covered by water due to the swelling of the rivers, and residents did not have enough time to react. Today, Practical Action and other organizations have installed alert systems in some of the rivers that reach these communities, such as Asunción del Quiquibey, Puerto Yumani and Altamarani. This technological equipment can warn residents of rising water in tributaries.

León Lizón Romano, the director of projects for Practical Action, told Mongabay Latam that rain gauges were installed at several points along the rivers near the communities to measure the rainfall and be able to warn residents if the rivers flooded. The expert added that this is an early alert system and this project also goes hand-in-hand with training sessions with the Indigenous communities and several construction projects, such as the Ark of Puerto Yumani.

“This is all a challenge; it is difficult, but not impossible. There are several issues, and the projects require various adjustments. We are happy to achieve synergy between authorities, communities and ourselves, and that is a success, because the more unity there is, the better the results will be,” Lizón said.

Many members of the community expected the worst for early 2024, since they estimate that strong floods occur every 10 years. This perception is common among residents of Asunción del Quiquibey, Altamarani and Puerto Yumani. They do not want to predict harm, but they are following the knowledge of their ancestors. “What was [predicted] was that in early 2024, there would be many problems due to new floods. We know our territories, and it seems that it is time. But now, we are more prepared to confront the misfortunes that are part of our Mother Earth’s behavior,” Libay said.

Jesús Rivera, the director of the risk management unit of the Rurrenabaque mayor’s office, is also worried about flood warnings from specialized entities because he remembers the flooding in 2014. It caused the deaths of 11 people in his municipality, and several hills very close to the Amazonian town collapsed.

“The drinkable water system, [whose water] comes from the mountain range, was ruined for 28 days. People drank rainwater [and water] from streams, and many people sheltered in schools. So, we have chosen this school [Germán Busch] to serve as a shelter so that the people who come can use the water collection system, and by using the shelter, we can reuse the water,” Rivera said.

Although El Niño caused floods in Bolivia, the Indigenous members of these Amazonian communities feel satisfied with the results of the actions they have implemented, since the period of intense rains passed without causing destruction. They hope to continue experiencing the same success in the future.

Water reaches Altamarani

Altamarani is another Indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Its residents belong to the Tacana ethnic group, and the town belongs to the municipality of San Buenaventura in the department of La Paz. Water is a valued and well-cared-for resource in this town too. Norberto Buchapi is the president of the community’s Water Committee. He recalled that during his childhood and teenage years, he and the rest of the community did not have adequate access to water because there were no nearby streams. They only consumed water from the Beni River.

Although it was contaminated, they used this water from the Beni River for all of their needs until 2005. However, the next year, everything changed: An elevated water tank was installed and a well with a depth of 26 meters (about 85 feet) was drilled.

“In the beginning, the project did not work. At a depth of 8 meters (about 26 feet), they came across clay. We had to stop. But later, more drilling was done and we had to dig deeper to reach good water, which is not potable, but it helps us a lot,” said Buchapi.

Chlorine dispensers were also installed in Altamarani to improve the water quality. The work of the community’s Water Committee was monitored. This committee is in charge of the operation, maintenance and administration of the water system, in addition to the consumption of each user.

Other improvements in Altamarani included the installation of a photovoltaic system to pump water and a biodigester to treat sewage from the bathrooms in the community’s school. Practical Action, along with other organizations, developed these projects.

“After conducting an analysis of the water in this community, we discovered that its water sources contain high levels of naturally occurring iron and manganese. This was risky for consumption. Additionally, they damage the distribution systems, such as pipes and spigots, on a medium- and long-term [basis],” Lizón said.

Most of the 25 families living in Altamarani practice agriculture and produce chocolate or banana flour. Roxana Áñez turns on the spigot outside the flour production facility. She washes her raw materials and her hands. She is happy; it is as if she is seeing water for the first time.

“Here, water is used for everything. It helps me a lot with the [business] venture that we have with the women in the community. The family also uses a lot of water. We use it for cooking, for hygiene, to wash clothing [and] we boil it and use it for drinking or to make a chicha [corn liquor]. We are lucky enough to have been able to organize ourselves and now we can have water; [this is] not like before, when we had to walk to the Beni River to have water [that was] dirty and contaminated,” Áñez said.

In the community, 10,000 liters (2,640 gallons) of water last three days. Buchapi is in charge of using a master key so the tank can be refilled. This process, which used to take three hours, can now take up to five hours, which suggests that it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain water to fill the tank. Each family in the community pays for the water services at a cost of no more than 21 bolivianos ($3). This money is used to maintain the tank and for other services involved in the functioning of the water system, such as paying for electrical services so the pump can operate.

“Resilience” is now a well-understood concept in these Amazonian towns. Members of these communities are overcoming the traumatic circumstances they have lived through due to climate change. Droughts and floods have both affected them deeply. Flooding from rivers, displacements, landslides, migration and floods are some of the disasters they have suffered and that, paradoxically, have led to water shortages. Buchapi recalled that a decade ago, a flood from the Beni River damaged crops and destroyed some houses. That kind of suffering has not returned since then.

During the dry season, the situation worsened, causing the migration of many residents from Altamarani. Families dispersed, and many decided to go to urban areas in search of a better life. After years of effort, the community members who stayed in Altamarani now have access to water and are able to administer business ventures.

Michelle Vásquez, environmental specialist from Senamhi’s risk management area, explained that the drought in the Amazon has not been a frequent event and that floods indeed have occurred more often, but in the last few years — since approximately 2016 — the effects caused by a lack of water have become stronger and more recurrent.

“In the next few months, we do not have a favorable scenario; the projections that exist [say] that there will be less precipitation. Therefore, it is very probable that the drought will continue,” Vásquez said.

In these three communities, the most intense months of El Niño passed without a tragedy, even though Bolivia is experiencing a major blow due to extreme rainfall, causing overflowing rivers and floods. Puerto Yumani, Altamarani and Asunción del Quiquibey survived without any major issues. On the contrary, they showed their resilience and hope to confront any potential drought successfully, and — even more-so — they hope to confront it with their own water.

Banner image: A child from the community of Puerto Yumani drinks water as it flows from a spigot. Water now reaches the homes in this town, thanks to the work of community members. Image by Iván Paredes.

This story was reported by Mongabay’s Latam team and first published here on our Latam site on Mar. 22, 2024.