Earthsky Interviews
Private: Titicaca Reedbeds
09-15-2002 - Human World
_JB:_ The lake has an abundance of reedbeds that cover an area 2 1/2 times the size of San Francisco. They also provide breeding grounds for fish that the local Indians catch, and the reeds are harvested to make boats and to feed cattle. We spoke with Ben Orlove, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California-Davis.
_Ben Orlove:_ There have been fishermen around the lake for at least 5000 years, and the harvest of reeds goes back nearly that far.
_DB:_ Orlove said that the locals carefully tend the reedbeds, burning them when they overgrow and replanting when the reeds die off. And in recent decades the local Indians have resisted efforts by the Peruvian and Bolivian governments to exploit the reedbeds.
_Ben Orlove:_ This is one of the few cases where the indigenous people have kept control of their territory. It’s also one of the most sustainable cases, and I think that’s not a coincidence.
_JB:_ For more on Lake Titicaca, come to earthsky.org. Thanks today to the “Bureau of Land Management”:http://www.blm.gov/nhp/ and to the “National Fish and Wildlife Foundation”:http://www.nfwf.org/ – supporting the conservation of native fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
The following individual was interviewed for today’s show. Our thanks to:
Dr. Benjamin S. Orlove
Department of Environmental Science and Policy
University of California at Davis
More Resources:
Lines in the Water: Nature and Culture at Lake Titicaca, by Benjamin S. Orlove, University of California Press, 2002. (Additional information is available “here”:http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Orlove/book/index.html).
“Archaeological Research in the Lake Titicaca Basin”:http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/wiskachuni/ – University of California at Santa Barbara
“Titicaca Web Server Project Pages”:http://titicaca.ucsb.edu/ – University of California at Santa Barbara
UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme – “Titicaca Basin”:http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/case_studies/titicaca_lake/index.shtml
USGS Soundwaves – “Geophysical Studies of Lake Titicaca Provide Paleoclimate Insights”:http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/1999/03/fieldwork.html
Author’s notes:
The surface of Lake Titicaca is at 12,800 feet of altitude, so the air among its reeds is cold and thin. Yet the sunlight reaching the lake is strong, because Lake Titicaca is only about 15 degrees south of the equator. Traveler’s tales call the lake “luminous.” Bright sunlight helps the reeds grow quickly. The lake is 90 miles long, with a total area of 2800 square miles. The reedbeds cover an area 125 times larger than New York’s Central Park or 2.5 times larger than the city of San Francisco.
The Indians living around Lake Titicaca burn the reeds once or twice per decade, when they become so thick that they shade the new shoots. In September and October (early spring in the southern hemisphere) they replant reeds. They wade knee-deep into the shallows and push clumps of roots into the mud. In years when the lake is high, they tie roots to stones and paddle out in boats (sometimes reed boats) to where the water is about 10 feet deep. They drop the stones into the water and use long poles to push them into the mud.
Lake Titicaca is home to many unique species. There is a species of flightless grebe which uses its vestigial wings to transport its young, and a species of fish which crushes snails with teeth in its throat. There are also large frogs that never surface – they absorb oxygen through their skins. While many other old lakes have lost most of their unique fish species in the past century, Titicaca has lost only one.