Titicaca Reedbeds
Lake Titicaca - Satellite image from the NSGS's Landsat7 database.
DB: This is Earth and Sky. Lake Titicaca is high in the Andes Mountains of South America. At three million years of age, it’s among the world’s most ancient lakes.
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 and to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation – 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).
Archaeological Research in the Lake Titicaca Basin – University of California at Santa Barbara
Titicaca Web Server Project Pages – University of California at Santa Barbara
UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme – Titicaca Basin
USGS Soundwaves – Geophysical Studies of Lake Titicaca Provide Paleoclimate Insights
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.
Additional Teacher Resources
NASA, Earth Observatory: Lake Titicaca
A brief natural history of Lake Titicaca along with imagery from various NASA satellites.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, World Water Assessment Programme: Lake Titicaca Basin
Lake Titicaca is a region of mystery and legend. Originally inhabited by the Urus, a race today extinct, it was dominated successively by Aymara warlords, Quechuas of the Inca empire, and Spanish conquerors. This article explores the cultures that have flourished around this ancient lake and the symbiotic relationship with the lake and its reedbeds that all these cultures shared.
World Lakes, LakeNet, Protecting and Restoring the Health of Lakes Throughout the World: Profile: Lago Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is the largest freshwater lake in South America and the highest of the world’s large lakes. Titicaca is one of less than twenty ancient lakes on earth, and is thought to be three million years old. This site is a tremendous resource and provides comprehensive coverage of the lakes natural, social, cultural and economic importance.
