One year after UK storms, farmer from flooded Somerset village visits Bolivia with Oxfam

One year on from the extreme weather that brought havoc to the UK, farmer Liz Crew has travelled to Bolivia with Oxfam to meet farmers and families living in small rural communities who face flooding every year. Mother of four Liz 57, lives in the village of Moorland on the Somerset Levels, which was badly flooded at the beginning of the year. Liz had to sell her livestock in advance of the floods and her land was submerged under water.

Liz travelled to the Beni region of Bolivia, which is the same size as the UK and where rural communities face both drought and flooding annually. The rainfall in the country has been increasing and the floods earlier this year were the worst in recent history with tens of thousands of people affected.

Liz said: “Whilst the flooding in the UK was devastating, the scale of flooding in Bolivia is unbelievable. The extreme weather is having a huge impact on the lives of everyone that I met, yet I have been so inspired by how people are adapting and surviving. It’s clear that more support is needed to help countries like Bolivia adapt to the changing weather.”

Liz visited projects supported by Oxfam and partners including farmers who have revived a 3,000-year-old irrigation technique as a sustainable way of producing food. The camellones are raised platforms of land surrounded by canals that provide protection from flooding and a source of water in the dry season.

In the village of Mangalito, Liz met families who face constant flooding from the old Mamore River, which runs alongside their homes. The community have worked with Oxfam and partners to raise their homes and schools on concrete stilts. The floodwaters rise so high that people living in the village have to travel in canoes between the homes and to take their children to school.

Liz continued: “Even though I travelled halfway around the world, I was struck by the similarities of our stories. Both the Levels and Beni are flat, so the water has nowhere to drain away. And when the waters receded at home, there were dead fish all over the fields and it was the same in Mangalito, but here it affected people’s income as the price at market halved.”

Liz also visited Soberania, a remote community only accessible by boat, deep in the Amazon basin. Families there are eight hours away from the nearest town and Liz saw how families had also raised their homes and how the drought and flooding made it very difficult to grow crops successfully.

Liz said: “Everyone is so strong and trying so desperately hard with the limited resources they have to accommodate the extreme heat and flooding. From speaking to people, it’s clear that water is the most destructive element that anyone could have to deal with and that was our experience in Moorland.”

Last year saw the wettest winter in the UK since records began in 1910 and in Bolivia, the annual rainfall is increasingly unpredictable with the floods this year the worst in recent history. Oxfam is campaigning for financing to help poor countries – which are the most vulnerable to extreme weather – to adapt, as this sort of weather is expected to increase with the advent of climate change.

Lisa Rutherford, Oxfam’s UK Regional Media Manager said “We invited Liz to Bolivia because it’s clear that she cares deeply about the impact extreme weather is having not just on her own community but in countries that are more vulnerable. She saw first-hand how families are adapting and surviving and we hope that she continues to work with Oxfam on this vital issue.”