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Washington, D.C.March 21, 2025
Featured photograph by Musuk Nolte.
Over the course of his professional career, Mexican-Peruvian photographer Musuk Nolte has wielded his artistic and documentary-style photography as a means of commenting on cultural and social issues. Lately, the National Geographic Explorer has focused on South American water systems and issues related to climate change and water scarcity.
His body of work contributes to National Geographic Society’s World Freshwater Initiative, a five-year program that supports the World Water Map and projects related to freshwater conservation, education and storytelling.
“Water is an important metaphor for how different territories are connected,” Nolte says.
In recent years, Nolte has been spending time investigating the severe drought affecting Lake Titicaca, which runs through Bolivia and Peru. In Puno, situated on Peru’s Altiplano, the high plateaus of the Andes is where Nolte has focused his storytelling. He became interested in deepening his storytelling around water issues after documenting water access struggles and makeshift solutions in Peru’s capital city Lima — the second-largest capital city in the world built on a desert — in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Society’s COVID-19 emergency funding supported his multimedia reporting project, “History of water in the desert.”
“That started an interest in investigating the most critical points in Peru where I could document a story that was significant in the country, but that also would serve as a symptom of water issues around the world.”
The Coata River has overflowed its banks after passing through Juliaca, Peru. The city has grown, and the sanitary landfill and waste treatment plant are collapsed. All this garbage then reaches the lake.
Photograph by Musuk Nolte
For more than a decade, Puno has experienced a decline in the volume and frequency of rainfall, resulting in Lake Titicaca’s water level dropping by more than a meter, while mining and urban growth have also contributed to the lake’s increasingly polluted state. Nolte’s photographs catalog the plight of farmers and herders who have struggled to harvest food, nourish their livestock and earn from tourism as navigable waterways dry up.
People have left in swaths in search of life elsewhere, explains Nolte. “And some young people look for higher paying jobs like mining. It ends up being a vicious cycle.”
Meanwhile, miles away in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon, Nolte has photographed different symptoms of the same issue: severe droughts have left houseboats stranded in the middle of parched river beds, often rendering people’s homes unsalvageable from damage to the hulls. Nolte’s images depict the ramifications of drought to the world while also acknowledging extraordinary resilience and problem-solving.
Due to the contamination of river and lake water, cattle can now only drink water from wells, which is largely contaminated as well, but less harmful than the river water.
Photograph by Musuk Nolte
Through his years of storytelling, Nolte has collaborated with local activists and community leaders. His recent pictures from Lake Titicaca feature members of an organization known as Dhuma, “derechos humanos y medio ambiente” which translates to “human rights and environment.” The network of women advocate for defense of the lake through social clean-up campaigns and engagement with political experts, while promoting women’s leadership and challenging sexism and gender-based violence. Nolte was guided by Juana Mamani, the organization’s secretary, across her home on the Capachica peninsula, facing Lake Titicaca. Nolte says they often stood on land where maps indicated there should be water.
“But Juana Mamani is one of the people that has a hopeful and positive attitude toward creating change. She bears a spirit of fight and resistance,” Nolte says, and through his time documenting the region, he continues to bear witness to spiritual practices that tie local communities to the land and water. “That’s something that keeps me in high spirits.”
Since 2013, Nolte and Fernando Fujimoto have operated an independent photography book publishing company out of Lima. The friends and partners co-founded KWY Ediciones to support the circulation of documentary photo projects by Latin American authors. “This project is a way to return to the place where stories originate, books.”
Nolte has authored eight books himself. His most recently published is “Geographies of Water.” It’s what he describes as the first chapter of a broader narrative of independent stories based in various places, from the Pacific Ocean to the Andes, sharing the burden of a water crisis.
Nolte plans to extend his documentation of water and its related issues. His goal is to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of water resource challenges by sharing stories across diverse regions and time.
“What makes me feel the most satisfied is the feeling that this long-term project about water has allowed me to develop a body of work that evidences how territories are connected in some way.”
Update March 27, 2025: World Press Photo announced Nolte as a winner of the 2025 photo contest in the South America region for his work on droughts in the Amazon.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Natalie Hutchison is a Digital Content Producer for the Society. She believes authentic storytelling wields power to connect people over the shared human experience. In her free time she turns to her paintbrush to create visual snapshots she hopes will inspire hope and empathy.
About The National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society is a global nonprofit organization that uses the power of science, exploration, education and storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world. Since 1888, National Geographic has pushed the boundaries of exploration, investing in bold people and transformative ideas, providing more than 15,000 grants for work across all seven continents, reaching 3 million students each year through education offerings, and engaging audiences around the globe through signature experiences, stories and content.
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