In the shadow of melting glaciers: life in the heartland of the Incas’ former empire – a photo essay

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In Cusco, the Quechua people are at the forefront of the climate struggle. Amid Peru’s sacred mountains and ancestral plateaux, they confront daily challenges, such as parched pastures, melting glaciers, disruptions to agricultural cycles and persistent mining that damages the land.

In this context, survival itself becomes an act of resistance.

The Quechuas’ resistance involves men, women, children, animals and the ecosystem itself, but has never been closer to collapse.

Sheep graze around a pool in the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba River in Peru. Forbidding clouds touch the mountains in the distance.

Over the past six decades, glaciers in the Peruvian Andes have lost more than 48% of their surface area, according to data from the national water authority. The Cusco region is no exception.

Portrait of a Quechua man in traditional dress during the Compadres festival.

The gradual retreat of glaciers has reduced the summer water supply, affecting small potato fields and the pastures where llamas, sheep and alpacas graze. In some areas, the productive capacity of pasture has decreased by up to 30%, making life harder for livestock.

In dealing with this crisis, the public response has been fragmented. Although nationwide climate mitigation programmes exist, such as Perú Limpio (Clean Peru) or the environment ministry’s national adaptation plan, rural communities report poor implementation at the local level, particularly in remote provinces.

A woman walks up a hill track with a large bundle of branches tied to her back, climbs the slopes with her little dog.

This has resulted in increased internal migration. A report by IDL-Reporteros, an online newspaper based in Lima, and the aid organisation Care Peru indicates that more than 72,000 families left rural Andean areas between 2018 and 2024 due to drought, agricultural crises and a lack of structural support.

In a hamlet above the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba River, two women gather wool from their dead sheep

Against this backdrop, the resilience observed in Quechua villages is everywhere in everyday actions, such as tending endangered livestock, preparing soup with what is to hand, and teaching children to recognise the cycles of the Earth.

Children from the Queros community play beneath their homes in a hilly landscape

The cult of Pacha Mama, meaning “Mother Earth” in Quechua, dates back to pre-Incan times on the Andean plateau. Spanish chroniclers documented her veneration as early as the 16th century, describing her as a female deity associated with fertility, soil and agricultural cycles.

Today, millions of people in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile maintain the ancient traditions.

A Quechua shepherd climbs the steep slopes of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, carrying a load of food for his family.

A group in traditional dress gathers during the Compadres festival, holding a Peruvian flag aloft.

At the foot of a snow-capped peak, a Quechua father and son in traditional dress perform the ancient ritual of spiritual purification and union with Pacha Mama

For the Quechua people, Pacha Mama is a tangible figure, to whom offerings of coca, maize, seeds and wool are made. She is “the mother of all living creatures”, according to Andean leaders, such as the late Quechua writer Hernán Huarache Mamani.

“We must respect her, know her,” Mamani said.

Quechua spirituality is more than a veneration cult – it is an active, communal form of resistance. It involves summoning all components of the world – air, rain, rocks, animals and people – into harmony, when faith is renewed, and for a moment, fatigue, drought and isolation are suspended.

A group of men in traditional dress celebrate friendship and the bond with Pacha Mama, Mother Earth, during the Compadres festival in the Sacred Valley of the Incas

“In recent years, the glaciers that give us water are receding. The streams that feed the pastures dry up before summer, and the grasses gradually disappear. Animals are drinking less and eating poorly. And we with them,” says a Quechua woman.

“I am afraid for the future of my grandchildren,” she says. “If the water continues to be lacking, they will be forced to leave these mountains or do jobs they don’t know.”

Father and son, at the foot of the highest snow-capped peak in Queros, perform the ritual of spiritual purification and union with Pacha Mama

This communal struggle drives a resistance more robust than any external pressure could possibly be. It is based, not on institutional structures or top-down funding, but on the bond that unites every living being to its environment.

“I am very attached to this land, to the animals, to the mountains,” says Miguel, from the Queros Quechua community in the Sacred Valley.

“Despite the loneliness and difficulties, I continue grazing and try to pass on the value of this activity to my grandchildren as well, so that one day they too can endure.”

Two llamas embrace on a rocky mountain plateau with dark clouds in the background

The Quechua people’s testimonies provide first-hand accounts of daily exposure to the pressures of a predatory system that, despite the climate crisis, continues to expand without enabling anyone to adequately address its consequences.

A man from the Chahuaytire community, bent over the fire in his kitchen, prepares soup for his family

Two women from the Quechua community of Chahuaytire eat their meal made up of two varieties of potatoes

A boy attends the Tree Celebration festival in Queros. He is standing at the front of a car with balloons tied to the wipers, there is another car parked alongside and groups of people in the background. The sky is dark and the weather looks grim.

Indigenous cultures, despite comprising only 6% of the world’s population, are among the most affected by a development model based on extraction, overconsumption and increasing emissions.

Often excluded from environmental policies, these communities face today’s crisis without the necessary tools, recognition or resources. The resistance of the Quechua through grazing, rituals and Pacha Mama worship is the voice of those who have built their existence in balance with the environment and who pay the highest price for the choices of others.

Their model does not place humans at the centre of the world, but as part of a larger, ecological and participatory web where every element is indispensable for life.