In defense of Atitlán Lake

Mayan women walk to deliver flowers to Atitlán Lake, their grandmother, during the Plurinational Summit for Water and Freedom in March 2023. Photo © María Guarchaj.

Reportage • María Guarchaj and Teresa Gonón • August 22, 2024 • Leer en castellano

The blue of Lake Atitlán fades into the dark green vegetation on the slopes of the Atitlán, Tolimán and San Pedro volcanoes in the department of Sololá, Guatemala. Over one hundred thousand people live in Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil and K'iche’ villages around the lake and they depend upon its water to live.

The lake has faced danger for some time. In 2009, a bloom of cyanobacteria, which feeds from sunlight and carbon, blotched the water with green. This dissipated quickly, but it was clear that pollution is on the rise. Studies by Guatemala’s San Carlos University and the Universidad del Valle indicate that climate change as well as sewage, solid waste and nutrients from soil washed away by rainfall are the principal cause.

A few years after the bacterial bloom, groups of Mayan Tz’utujil women from San Pedro la Laguna sounded the alarm about an attempt to build a massive water collector on the shores of the lake. 

As proposed, the mega-collector would have required the installation of a network of pipelines. The Friends of the Lake Association said that this would be a way to divert and treat the sewage that pollutes the lake, “but what they really wanted to do was sell the waters for monocropping on the southern shore,” said Débora Quiacaín, a lawyer and member of the Community Development Council (COCODE) of San Pedro la Laguna. Quiacaín also participates in the Tzunun Ya' Collective. In Tz'utujil, Tzunun Ya means “hummingbird of the lake,” Quiacaín said. “Our parents used to tell us that there were many hummingbirds,” she recalled.

An ambitious, incomplete project

“The project is interesting, scientifically, and it’s also ambitious,” said Marvin Alfonso Romero, who has PhD in water management, when asked about the mega-collector proposal. “Treatment plants are meant to reduce gas, which will allow the recovery of nutrients that can go on to benefit agriculture,” noted Romero. “But this poses a challenge because of the magnitude of the infrastructure and the high level of engineering needed to install the pipelines.”

Communities commonly ask questions about projects of this sort, according to Romero. For such a project to be viable, he explained that three elements need to be considered: the scientific-technical aspect; the context, the culture, and wellbeing and the economic plan. “This is where the conflict started; although it’s an interesting idea, it did not take context and culture into account,” Romero said via video call. "Also, their account of the finances changed: at the beginning they said that it would cost $19 million dollars, [which later rose] to $250 million. It’s an incomplete plan."

Women's groups, members of the COCODE in San Pedro and others formed the Tzunun Ya' Collective in response to the threatened installation of the pipelines. Living along the shores of Lake Atitlán is what pushed them into action. The community of San Pedro, where Quiacaín lives, is a Tz’utujil tourist area. Visitors access San Pedro by taking a boat across Lake Atitlán from the town of Panajachel or by land.

Lake Atitlán at sunset. Photo © Dawn Marie Paley.

Constant defense of water

The Tzunun Ya' Collective has carried out various kinds of advocacy work, but stopping the construction of the mega-collector is a point of pride. In 2021, they secured a writ of protection from the Constitutional Court by arguing that there had been a lack of popular consultation. According to Quiacaín, then vice president Jafeth Cabrera avoided consulting the public on the project.

San Pedro residents and members of Tzunun Ya' hold monthly clean-up days. There are 13 groups that take turns cleaning up, including the Community Council for Urban and Rural Development, groups of boat operators, and associations of fishermen, women, youth and the council of elders.

“We got organized to raise awareness and boat operators, sports groups and women's groups joined in. Pastors and priests also started talking about the dangers to the lake,” said Quiacaín, as she recalled how they initiated dialogues and mobilized to defend the lake in 2014.

Another group working to protect the lake is the Authority for the Sustainable Management of the Lake Atitlán Basin and its Surroundings (AMSCLAE, in its Spanish acronym), which Mervín Pérez leads. AMSCLAE carries out activities ranging from campaigns on wastewater and solid waste treatment to clean up and training days for various groups. According to Romero, AMSCLAE and the municipalities have the legal responsibility to care for and protect Lake Atitlán.

“The pollution of the lake can be traced to several sources, but solid waste and sewage are particularly important,” said Pérez. “This is an ongoing issue, and the work that the communities carry out with clean up days and campaigns adds to efforts to protect the lake.”

Monitoring and cleaning up the lake is an ongoing and arduous process. “In addition to stopping the attack on the lake,” said Quiacaín, referring to the injunction that the Constitutional Court handed down in 2021, “we’re also putting forward our own ideas about how to protect it.”

She highlights that managing solid waste is a major concern. From families to local businesses, it’s necessary to act on plastics, styrofoam and other material that pollute the lake. Their proposals include the construction of biodigesters with natural filters and septic tanks with adequate filtration as well as plans to raise awareness about the importance of caring for the lake and coordinating the monitoring work with other municipalities as well as with local and government authorities.

We care for the lake

Three lines of preventive action are needed to safeguard the lake, according to Romero. These run from the individual-family level to the municipal and state level. Pérez agrees that responsibility for protecting the lake does not reside with a single entity but needs to be collective. He acknowledges that AMSCLAE has thus far only coordinated actions to deal with solid waste and that they need to continue working with communities, municipalities and other organizations.

For her part, Quiacaín says that they have tried to work with local municipalities and have achieved a degree of coordination, but this is difficult because investing in the protection of Lake Atitlán is not a priority for the government.

Romero believes that the mega-collector project is on pause for now and that groups interested in implementing it are waiting for an opportune political moment to get it back on track. In the meantime, “activists are doing a lot of work, building a social base, focusing their attention on young people and talking about safe water and the danger that pollution poses to food security.”

“That’s why our work is constant,” said Quiacaín. Her task is to continue sharing knowledge about the importance of defending the lake with organizations in the other municipalities of the basin while also working to change polluting practices, with an eye to prevention. “Tzunun Ya' is moving forward and we’re not alone,” said Quiacaín. “We know how important the lake is for us; it’s our life and our history.”