INTRODUCTION
This is a story of climate change, displacement and informality in the Andean region.

The interconnected systems of climate change, inequality and rapid urbanisation are putting pressure on existing living situations around the world, particularly in South America. Changing climates and environmental exploitation is making life in rural areas increasingly challenging. Ultimately, triggering displacement from rural areas to cities. This process furthers already rapid urban growth, bringing its own challenges, from resource scarcity and infrastructure provision to cultural integration. Addressing these issues requires systemic and localised change.

Interested in understanding these connected issues and their possible solutions, Seb and EJ travelled through the continent, from Colombia's Caribbean coast through megacities and arid deserts, to Chile's southern wilderness. Along the way, we met with community leaders, indigenous people, academics and designers to discuss climate change, resource extraction, over-urbanisation and some of the local solutions to these increasingly global challenges.

The Andes are the world's longest mountain range, spreading from the southern tip of Argentina/Chile to the northern coast of Colombia. They are essential to the Andean region's climate, separating East from West, with the arid regions of Southern Peru, Bolivia, and Northern Chile from the sodden Amazonian rainforest, as well as separating the Patagonian desert in Patagonian Argentina from the temperate rainforests of Southern Chile.

The Andean region, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina have decades of experience dealing with issues increasingly impacting the world. This incredibly varied region has seen massive urban growth earlier than in many other countries, significant political upheaval, and a history of resource extraction from the 1400s to the present day.

While climate change, displacement and over-urbanisation may appear as disparate forces, they are interconnected, with changes in one directly and indirectly impacting others. For instance, climate change-induced water scarcity directly impacts crop yields and soil fertility. Excessive strain on crops reduces the viability of sustaining rural life as a farmer, in turn increasing the likelihood of forced or economic displacement - whether from an extreme shock or a gradual decline in crop productivity, this is climate migration. It’s important to note that most displaced people move within their country and from rural areas toward cities.

Through this video-research piece, we look to dissect and communicate the connected complexity of this story by breaking it into three chapters. Firstly, we present the story of how changing climates trigger displacement and migration in the continent. In chapter two, The Urban Refuge, explores rapid urbanisation, in part as a result of the changing climates. Finally, in Creating Change, we explore solutions, theoretical, educational and practical to some of the structural issues approached in this research.

PART.01
Changing Climates

Changing Climates begins with interviews from climate scientists based in Santiago, Chile, before introducing Karen Luza, an indigenous activist in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The section introduces the concept of climate migration and how this is not always the immediate displacement from a specific event, but can be a slow process. For example, consistently low rainfall can push farmers to ever-decreasing yields, displacing them from their land. The section also discusses the effects of resource extraction and how this can trigger climate migration. Whether it is gold mining polluting rivers in the Amazon or lithium extraction reducing water levels in the Atacama, over-extraction exacerbates climate change and forces displacement. We end the section by clarifying that the majority of climate migration is internal and rural-to-urban, two key factors to understand this crisis.

The Atacama desert, the driest in the world, is rich in Lithium, unfortunately, the process of Lithium extraction uses immense amounts of water, this industrial use of groundwater is pushing the pre-incan irrigation systems that the people of the Atacama rely on to the brink.

PART.02
THE URBAN REFUGE

The reasons displaced people turn to cities are varied. Cities are where people have contacts, see opportunity and jobs, and they are natural places to seek hope. Some of this is warranted, but urban realities are not always what they promise. Many people moving to cities, especially when displaced, arrive with little resources and end up living in informal settlements. This section looks at informality, informal urban growth and both the challenges and opportunities in these places.

By 2050, the UN estimates that over 3 billion people could be living informally. Informal settlements are hard to define but are often found in the most hazard-prone areas of the city and are usually communities constructed by the population that live in them, many have been around for decades, some over 100 years. More established settlements can benefit from regular power and public transport. Still, many living in informal areas are unable to access essential services such as waste management, public transport, clean water, and reliable electricity. Air pollution can also be a critical issue when living in dusty regions surrounded by motorways, as Karina Pacaya Cruz, community leader of a previously Amazonian group, now residing in an informal area of Lima, Peru, describes. Life in informal settlements is incredibly difficult and, by necessity, requires community resilience and innovation.

PART.03
CREATING CHANGE

Part three of this project looks to highlights potential solutions to the interconnected issues presented in parts one and two. Interviewing designers, academics, and community leaders from the Andean region showing how integral systems approaches are to solving complex problems. A common thread throughout our interviews was education and the importance of approaching complex issues with an interdisciplinary lens rather than through siloed disciplines.

Water and vegetation in Medellín, Colombia

Karina Pacaya-Cruz in Lima, Peru

Another recurring theme is localised change; driving systems change requires flexibility, adaptability and resilience. Those who live in informal areas or areas most affected by climate change can be the best placed to address problems they face, however often need recognition and support to do this. It is incredibly difficult to enforce top-down systems change; however, through participatory approaches and localised action, we can improve the situation for millions or billions of people. Part three ends with a discussion of alternatives to ‘development’ that rely not on one-size-fits-all approaches but instead reintegrate nature, indigenous and vernacular knowledge, and address our consumption and waste in creative ways.

Click image to watch

About us:
Seb and EJ studied at LIS and were consistently interested in the intersection of social and climatic issues. Through this project, they worked to centre the thoughts, opinions and experiences of people who study, live and work in the Andean region. This project scratches the surface of the issues presented, but its aim is to open the dialogue and help people see climate, nature, and social issues as integrated systems connected to extractionism, post-colonialism, over-urbanisation, and climate justice. We want to promote the idea of systemic and localised change.

References

Cover page | UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs | UN projects world population to peak within this century | https://www.un.org/en/UN-projects-world-population-to-peak-within-this-century
Cover page | Bloomberg UK | The Steep Curve to Peak Urban | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-16/the-world-is-urbanizing-faster-than-we-are-building
Cover page | World Economic Forum | More Than 3 Billion People Could Be Living in Slums by 2050 | https://www.weforum.org/videos/more-than-3-billion-people-could-be-living-in-slums-by-2050-says-the-un/