"Urban population boom threatens Lake Titicaca"

In the last twenty years, urban centers nearby Titicaca Lake have grown very fast. That threatens the Lake wish had sustain agriculture societies from Andeans plains for many years.

The demographic boom is explained because rural peasants look for a better life and they go to live to the city. Wish it has being devastating for the watershed. Garbage and industrial waste are dumped into rivers that flow into the Lake.

But change those conditions is not easy, meanly because there are not strong politics and laws about environment and there isn’t an adequate infrastructure.

The 80% of drinking water is provide by networks, and people from other countries are helping to install more, but the construction of a new plant to treat the water is very far away.

Local people tell their story. When they were young the rivers were clean, and they could drink and fish there, but now there are no fishes on rivers. That shows how pollution affects everything. Animals are born with defects or they are skinny, all that because of the concentration of heavy metal contamination produce by industries.

The effects on the lake and small towns are similar. About the lake, most of it has its water clear, but signs of pollution are visible in the areas near the mouth of rives. Plants had been removed and the fishes have been affected. For example, some of them used to live in warm shore waters and now they are living deep in the lake. Other effects over the fishes are the decrease of population and size. All this is a vicious circle, because it makes former fishermen migrate to cities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/12/urban-population-boom-lake-titicaca