QOTZUÑI

“The lake was our mother, our father. Now, we are orphans.” For centuries, the Uru people lived on floating reed houses, sustaining themselves through fishing and hunting on Lake Poopó. But industrial mining diverted and poisoned its tributaries, and severe droughts caused the lake to vanish entirely by 2016. Still, the Uru identify as Qotzuñis—their ancestral word meaning “people of the lake.”