More than 130 Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon were left isolated after a severe drought caused rivers used for transport to dry up, leaving families with little food, water or health care access. This affected the livelihoods of communities that rely on fish for food and trade, as well as crops and native plants and trees, a report by the country’s Ombudsman’s Office said. “It has been very difficult,” Apu Roberto Tafur Shupingahua, president of the Federation of Native Communities of the Tapiche and Blanco River, told Mongabay over a phone call. “I could not visit a health center because there are no roads around here. We are completely cut off.” The dry season usually runs from August to October, but this year it arrived in July, the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service of Peru reported. According to the agency, the drought was a result of the El Niño phenomenon, which caused a change in the humidity of the Amazon, resulting in irregular rainfall during the flood season. This led to a reduction in river levels, and the dry season started with a deficit of 2 meters (6.5 feet). Major variations in the Amazon River’s levels can have dire consequences for communities depending on its waters. Image by Ryan Biller. Both El Niño and climate change have contributed to the lack of rainfall in the region, ongoing since mid-2023, but climate change also led to extremely high temperatures and increased water evaporation, according to a report from World Weather…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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