Mining Industry Puts a Freeze on Mapping of Argentina’s Glaciers

[Dead_Parrot]

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 15, 2012 (IPS) - Since late 2011, scientists in Argentina have been carrying out an inventory of the country’s glaciers, with the aim of monitoring and preserving them. But they have failed to reach the most critical areas, where large-scale mining projects are encroaching on the ice fields.

It was in response to the threat from the mining industry that environmental organisations began to insist on the need for a law to protect the glaciers that run the length of the Andes mountain range in western Argentina.

The first bill was approved by Congress in 2008, but President Cristina Fernández, in office since December 2007, vetoed it on the argument that it affected development in provinces that depend on mining revenue, by limiting economic activities near glaciers.

Two years later, a consensus was reached on a new bill. A law establishing "minimum budgets for the protection of glaciers and the periglacial environment", approved in 2010, declared the ice fields "strategic reserves of water".

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