Ever since the Upamayo Dam on Peru’s Lake Chinchaycocha was built in 1932, floods have become a frequent occurrence in the area for several months a year. From January to May, entire homes and pasturelands are swallowed whole by water, forcing campesino families to migrate with their livestock to higher ground. But there’s something else in the flooded waters: it’s also contaminated by the Cerro de Pasco mining district upstream. When they can return in late June, residents say the pastures smell and are unsafe for animals to graze in. But few have a choice; they never received compensation for other lands. So their cattle and sheep that must eat the grass sometimes develop sepsis and die. Others pick up unknown diseases, and farmers find them running aimlessly, almost mindlessly. There have been so many deaths one community had to open a cemetery specifically for livestock. “When we see that cattle are already sick, we have to kill them to eat them before they die, but we’re poisoning ourselves,” Micaela Espinoza, a campesina farmer from the Chaquinilnioc community in Vicco district, Pasco department, told Mongabay by phone. “It shows on our skin, on our hands. It shows because we are eating an infected animal. But we prefer to kill them to eat them before they die on their own and we lose, because it’s a source of livelihoods for all these families.” Studies carried out by the National Water Authority show the presence of heavy metals in the water in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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