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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Constance Malleret in Brasília

‘A future on our terms’: how community energy is lighting up Latin America

A long narrow boat on a wide brown river bordered by jungle
A solar-powered boat in the Ecuadorean Amazon developed by the Indigenous Achuar people, who have also improved local education and community tourism by using solar panels in 10 of their communities. Photograph: Kara Solar

When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Roxana Borda Mamani had to leave Mexico, where she was studying for her degree in rural development and food security, and return to her remote village in the Peruvian Amazon.

At the time, the Indigenous community in Alto Mishagua had neither an internet connection nor a reliable energy source. “How am I going to study?” Borda asked. “With energy from the sun,” replied her friend, a fellow member of the Latin American Observatory for Energy Geopolitics at the Brazil-based Federal University of Latin American Integration (Unila).

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