Argentina enacted a new law that protects the country's glaciers, in a global context where climate change threatens the large bodies of ice and there are risks of different polluting activities. The law, enacted on September 30, aims to preserve the glaciers as "strategic reserves of water for human consumption, for agriculture and as suppliers of water to recharge basins, for the protection of biodiversity ; as a source of scientific and tourist attraction." The legislation also establishes the creation of the "National Inventory of Glaciers". It will be updated every five years, and verify the changes on the surfaces of glaciers and periglacial. The "periglacial environment†is the high mountain area, with frozen soil, that acts as regulator of water resources. Researchers at the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences will have the task to disclose necessary information to control and monitor all glaciers and periglacial areas that act as water reserves.
Argentina enacted a new law that protects the country's glaciers, in a global context where climate change threatens the large bodies of ice and there are risks of different polluting activities.
The law, enacted on September 30, aims to preserve the glaciers as "strategic reserves of water for human consumption, for agriculture and as suppliers of water to recharge basins, for the protection of biodiversity ; as a source of scientific and tourist attraction."
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The legislation also establishes the creation of the "National Inventory of Glaciers". It will be updated every five years, and verify the changes on the surfaces of glaciers and periglacial.
The "periglacial environment" is the high mountain area, with frozen soil, that acts as regulator of water resources.
Researchers at the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences will have the task to disclose necessary information to control and monitor all glaciers and periglacial areas that act as water reserves.
The law states and prohibits the release, dispersal or disposal of substances or contaminants, chemicals or waste of any kind or size in glaciers and periglacial environments. It also prohibited the exploration and explotacion of mines.
Furthermore, it required an environmental impact assessment of all planned activities which are not prohibited.
"The new Act Glaciers may be an important tool in protecting drinking water sources located in the higher sectors of the Andean Cordillera," told Jorge Rabassa to SciDev.Net, Rabassa is a researcher at the National Council of Science and Technology and Professor head of the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco in Ushuaia.
In the periglacial environment are the major water resources in the high mountains that supply throughout the year various river basins, especially during the summer.
Article translated from Spanish by J. Torres, ENN. For original article: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/argentina-protects-its-glaciers-by-law-.html
