Quehuisha Initiative: Protecting the Source of the Amazon as a Global Symbol of Fresh Water

From geographical discovery to responsibility for the future. Three decades after the source of the Amazon River was identified, a new international initiative proposes to transform this place into a global symbol for the protection of our planet's freshwater reserves.

This is the theme at the center of the international Quehuisha Initiative, scheduled in Lima on September 24, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the international expedition "Amazon Source '96", led by the Italian-Polish journalist and explorer Jacek Pałkiewicz, who determined the true source of the Amazon in the Peruvian Andes.

The message of the event can be summed up in two sentences: every great river originates in a discreet place, the protection of fresh water must start from its source. Hence the need to responsibly protect and enhance the mountain massif of the Arequipa region where the great river originates.

Its promoter is Jacek Pałkiewicz. "Thirty years ago - he underlines - we went to the high Andes to determine where the source of the Amazon was. Today, the most important question we must ask ourselves is another: what are we willing to do to protect the place where it originates?" Until recently, oil, natural gas or rare metals were considered symbols of wealth. However, the future of the world will depend not only on technological progress, but also on responsible management of water resources. Rapid climate changes are causing glaciers to retreat. Lakes and rivers dry up, conflicts over water arise, droughts prolong and millions of people suffer the consequences of water scarcity.

Water sources are becoming one of the symbols of the 21st century. An artery arises from the small Apacheta stream which, after traveling around seven thousand kilometres, flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Over the course of its course, the queen of rivers nourishes the world's largest rainforest, helps shape the climate of South America and discharges into the ocean about a fifth of all the fresh river water that reaches the planet's seas. Its importance is such that the Quehuisha massif, where the Amazon is born, could be considered the world capital of water sources."

The initiative is already starting to receive significant support. The Lima Geographical Society, historically linked to Amazon Source '96, the Environment Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru and the UNESCO Office in Peru, such as Peter H. Gleick, member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the Canadian Maude Barlow, former senior advisor for water issues to the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Renzo Grego, an Italian participant in the "Amazon Source '96" expedition, says: "Quehuisha should become for fresh water what Yellowstone has become for nature conservation."