Lake Uru Uru, in Bolivia’s highlands, was once considered important to Indigenous communities that depended on it for fishing, irrigation, livestock and other everyday needs. Rich wildlife, including large numbers of flamingos, was also supported by the lake. But years of mining pollution, urban waste, plastic trash and changing rainfall and temperatures degraded the wetland drastically. In 2019, sisters Dayana and Tatiana Blanco and other young Indigenous women responded by forming the Uru Uru Team. They started experimenting with an aquatic plant their community had used for generations: totora.
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