Members of the Uru Murato community are struggling to survive in their traditional home as Lake Poopó, once the second largest lake in Bolivia, completely evaporated seven years ago.

The Uru are an Indigenous community who have lived on Bolivia's lakes for almost 4,000 years.

The Uru Murato community now struggle for food and work as their traditional lifestyle was centred on the lake and their ability to fish.

The Uru people used to live on floating islands that sat atop the lake, which at its peak in 1986 measured 3,500 km2.

German Choque, an Uru resident of the shores of Lake Poopó, told Agence France-Presse: "We, the Uru people, are in big trouble."

"We are fishermen, the people of the lake, but our Cochamama is completely polluted by mining," he said.

'Cochamama' translates to Sea Mother, to whom the Uru people traditionally offer sweets and coca in exchange for sustaining them.

The lake has previously had low water levels but always recovered through the rainy season and draining water from the larger Lake Titicaca through the Desaguadero River. However, with the diversion of the Desaguedero for irrigation, Lake Poopó has been left in crisis.

AFP reported that 84 families used to live in the area yet only seven remain. Only 600 Uru people are left around the lake.

Felix Mauricio, a member of the Uru community, spoke of what used to be.

"The fish were big. A small fish was three kilos back then," he said.

Luis Valero, the 'Mallku' or Spiritual Leader of the community, said the Uru people "have been left without land".

"We trusted in the lake, our parents trusted in the lake, that it would stay forever, but it didn't," he said.

"The lake dried up all of a sudden and left us without a job."

"Where do we go? Where do we find a job? We have been forced to become bricklayers, day labourers, or to herd cattle for others."

Scientists blame climate change, among other factors, for the drying of Lake Poopó .

In 2016 the executive director of the Cochabamba-based Democracy Centre Jim Shultz told the Financial Times that the lake is a victim of "a perfect storm of climate change, El Niño and Bolivian development practices, mining in particular, that plays havoc with water in many ways".

The Bolivian Government have announced a land distribution policy to give to the Uru people, but the Uru believe the majority of the land to be unsuitable for farming.