Deforestation - Peru has the fourth largest area of rainforest in the world (70 million hectares) - approximately 250,000 hectares cut down annually -New roads, illegal and legal logging, gold mining, oil and gas explorations, and many other factors are causes of deforestation
Water pollution and access - Peru has 1746 cu km of renewable water resources - 86% of this water is used for farming and 7% for industrial activity - In urban areas 87% have access to clean water, while in rural areas 62% - 3.0 million tons of waste per year is created - pollution sources in Peru include industrial waste, sewage and oil related waste - According to the Oxfam report, more than half of Peru's rivers are extremely polluted
Air Pollution - especially in Lima - industrial activity and vehicle emissions - air pollution in Lima surpassed the international standard by 122.1% - Big problem in La Oroya, where it is considered one of the top 10 most polluted places in Earth
Amazonian tribes that live deep in the Peruvian Rainforest have been forced to move out and seek help due to illegal logging and drug trafficking happening in the area. There have been various sightings along the border between Brazil and Peru, and according to a member of a native tribe there, they asked for weapons and allies.
Photo: Telegraph
Despite FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation of Brazil, warning against contact with these indigenous tribe, many people seem to be ignoring this, and contacting them anyways. The problem of contact with indigenous tribes is that something as simple as a flu or a cold can wipe out a large population of a single tribe. Many people have been seen giving them food and clothing, with the intentions to help them, but they don’t know that those items contain germs.
FUNAI managed to contact them twice, and the second time brought two Panoan translators to try to communicate with them. One of the indigenous tribes men tried to make contact and he “described being attacked by non-native people and many died after coming down with the flu and diphtheria”. We can see here that the indigenous tribe members have been forced to move out due non-natives, which are most likely illegal loggers and drug traffickers.
According to Anthropologist Terry Alquino, these indigenous tribes men were looking for materials such as knives and axes. He said the reason for this was because the conflict that they had with the supposed drug dealers. He said that they were in an internal war, and that is why they were searching for contact with the outside world.
Influenza epidemics have killed entire tribes in the past, and this is the reason why FUNAI is so worried about their sudden contact. After one of the first contacts, the tribe returned to the forest with the flu, and so to prevent it from spreading, FUNAI has sent a government medical team to go treat members from their tribe.
With the average person generating around 750g of trash per day and little to no recycling programs, 8 million people suffer daily the consequences of waste un-management. Lima´s amount of waste can only be compared in the region with urban giants like México D.F and Rio de Janeiro.
Photo: El Comercio
Unlike other countries in the region that’s trash is distributed around their different cities, Lima is home of 1/3 of all the trash that the country generates. 21.5 tons of waste daily is what the city has to digest, but a short drive in the biggest districts around the city will prove that this sanitation problem is long from being solved. Often the poorer districts like San Juan de Lurigancho, Cercado de Lima, Comas, etc. are the most affected ones. Sometimes mounds of trash are just sitting in the roads for weeks, without anyone taking care of them. This can be an important health hazard for the already poverty struck population of those districts, that become more vulnerable to gastrointestinal infections, skin diseases and respiratory diseases.
Lima´s trashed is mostly (92%) disposed of in 5 main landfills located outside the metropolitan area, in the following districts: Ancón, Puente Piedra, Callao, Lurín and Campoy. The rest of the waste is managed informally, maybe fueled by necessity even though these informal gathering places may not have the sanitation requirements for the trash to be managed correctly.
Even though Lima is in a constant sanitation crisis, some efforts of keeping a clean city are found. For example, some supermarkets give out biodegradable plastic bags. In a specific district, they have a truck that compacts the residue and then stores it in a modern underground waste storage facility.
Another important issue is not only the trash, but the sewer´s waste is not properly managed. In Lima, most of the sewer´s residues are just thrown out to “La Chira”, which is a beach located in Chorrillos, really close by to the metropolis. Starting next year, a solution to the sewer´s residue problems will be treated. A new treating plant managed by Spanish and Peruvian concessionaries will be in charge of purifying the contaminated water before being dumped on the sea. It will have a 23 m deep, 3.6 km long submarine emissary from the plant to the sea. It will treat a water flow of 11,30 m2 per second. When it is finished by March 2015, it will benefit around 2,600,000 people. The plant will also produce water to irrigate green areas around them and their main goal is to recuperate the beaches that have been long contaminated around that zone. (ACCIONA)
Of the 30% of waste that can be recycled, only 12% did (2012). This means that Peruvians don´t have a recycling culture, or perhaps simply the government don´t have any recycling programs in its districts. In any case, we young Peruvians have the responsibility to conserve our various world renowned ecosystems, and preserve the natural treasures that put Our country in the eyes of the world.