Credit: TENT Film, National Geographic Society

Peru is home to 70% of the world’s tropical glaciers, but 40% of their surface area has disappeared in the last fifty years alone.

The glaciers are a crucial water source in Peru. People are forced to adapt as they disappear.

According to Peru's Natural Institute of Natural Resources, all of the country's 200 glaciers are under threat. It is feared that all of them will be gone soon.

In the Andes, due to glacier melt, rocks are exposed to the air for the first time in

thousands of years. The glacial meltwater now carries acid-heavy

metal minerals into the rivers. And from the rivers, to the crops and drinking water for livestock and for people.

This is the story of two remote mountain communities that depend on the water and are trying to fight back against the effects of climate change through innovative adaptation, combining ancestral tradition with state-of-the-art science.