In the small town of Chipaya, everything is dry. Only a few people walk along the sandy streets, and many houses look abandoned \u2013 some secured with a padlock. The wind is so strong that it forces you to close your eyes.<\/p>\n
Chipaya lies on Bolivia<\/a>\u2019s Altiplano, 35 miles from the Chilean border. The vast plateau, nearly 4,000 metres above sea level, feels almost empty of people and animals, its solitude framed by snow-capped volcanoes. It raises the question: can anybody possibly live here?<\/p>\n \u201cWe are the first inhabitants of South America,\u201d says Flora Mamani Felipe, Chipaya\u2019s first female mayor. \u201cWe are an ancient culture<\/a>, and we\u2019re now in danger of extinction. There are no jobs; people are migrating to Chile.\u201d<\/p>\n Flora Mamani Felipe, mayor of Chipaya, in her office in the town<\/p>\n The Indigenous leader \u2013 whose full title is Langsni Pagh M\u00e4 Eph of the Uru Chipaya people \u2013 is sitting in her office next to the town\u2019s central square. Even this part of Chipaya feels empty, its offices mostly deserted.<\/p>\n The Uru Chipaya are at risk of extinction as the climate crisis dries up their land<\/a> and their way of life. Once known as the \u201cpeople of water\u201d, they have seen drought, rising salt levels and migration push their traditions to the brink.<\/p>\n An interactive \u2018slider\u2019 showing satellite photos of a lake drying up almost entirely between 2013 and 2016 <\/a>Lake Poop\u00f3, once Bolivia\u2019s second-largest lake and an important fishing resource for local communities, has dried up<\/p>\n The nearby Lake Poop\u00f3, once the second largest in Bolivia, has vanished<\/a> and crops are failing. As a result, most of Chipaya\u2019s 2,000 inhabitants<\/a> have left for Chile to work. Local leaders say poverty, cultural erosion and health problems from salty water threaten those who remain.<\/p>\n Gabriel Moreno, an anthropologist at Bolivia\u2019s Technical University of Oruro, says: \u201cThe Uru Chipaya are part of Bolivia\u2019s cultural heritage<\/a>. It\u2019s one of the oldest Indigenous cultures in Latin America, dating back 3,000 to 4,000 years. And at the moment, there is a project intending to declare the Uru Chipaya as the oldest living culture in the world. It will be presented to Unesco in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreno works on projects in Uru Chipaya territory, including cultivating the totora bulrush reed as alternative animal fodder \u2013 crucial during drought to reduce food insecurity and climate vulnerability.<\/p>\n Severo Paredes Condori rears sheep on land he inherited from his grandparents. He says his animals are suffering because the earth has become more saline<\/p>\n Severo Paredes Condori, 63, is Uru Chipaya like his ancestors \u2013 but perhaps his descendants will not be. Living conditions, he says, have grown harsher. \u201cThere are no jobs here, you can\u2019t live here any more.\u201d<\/p>\n Paredes lives in a round clay house that is typical of the Uru Chipaya people, who fear their culture is dying out<\/p>\n Each year, he adds, they wash the soil to reduce salinity so crops can grow \u2013 but the effect lasts only 12 months. \u201cWe can cultivate quinoa, but after a year comes the salt, and the ground gets white, and then it doesn\u2019t fit for quinoa. Too much salt destroys the grass for the animals.\u201d<\/p>\n Paredes lives in one of the round clay houses typical of the Uru Chipaya, about 30 minutes from town, and herds sheep. Once, people here cultivated quinoa and grass for livestock. Now, drought, floods, frost and ever-rising salt levels kill llamas and sheep and wipe out quinoa.<\/p>\n The challenge of salt extends far beyond Chipaya, says Mohammed Mofizur Rahman, an environmental researcher from Bangladesh based at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research<\/a> in Germany. \u201cThis situation parallels the rice crop losses in the Asian mega-deltas, where high salinity in soil and water severely undermines agricultural productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Paredes says there are no jobs in Chipaya. As a result, many inhabitants have left the town for Chile<\/p>\n According to Chipaya mythology<\/a>, the Uru Chipaya have always lived near water. Moreno says: \u201cThe Uru Chipaya have climate resilience. They know how to divert water from the Lauca River, an impressive example of ancestral water management engineering. It is not for nothing they were called the men of water.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the water is vanishing. The ground around Chipaya glows white, as if dusted with snow \u2013 a thin crust of salt that signals deeper trouble. Already saline, the soil is becoming even more salty.<\/p>\n Mamani says: \u201cThere are no birds any more. We used to fish for trout in this river, but there are no fish now. Climate change brings floods and droughts. We\u2019re desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n