Buenos Aires, April 6 (NA) – The Glaciers Bill seeks to become law this Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies, aiming to redefine which protected zones and periglacial areas can permit exploration and exploitation activities to attract mining investments. The initiative was driven by the Government at the request of allied provincial governors to promote billion-dollar mining investments in the northern provinces and the Cuyo region through the RIGI regime, included in the Bases Law sanctioned in 2024. The law is promoted by the governors of Catamarca, Raúl Jalil; San Juan, Marcelo Orrego; Salta, Gustavo Sáenz, and Mendoza, Alfredo Cornejo, who has the most mining development. One of the central aspects of the law passed by the Senate is that it modifies protection criteria to allow economic activities in areas that were previously strictly protected, especially in the periglacial environment. Additionally, the initiative transfers powers to the provinces to decide which zones to protect and which not, reducing the interference of the central administration, according to the Argentine News Agency. What the law is about Law 26.639, sanctioned on September 30, 2010, established the minimum budgets for the protection of glaciers and the periglacial environment and ordered the creation of the National Inventory of Glaciers, with the responsibility of identifying and registering all glaciers and periglacial geoforms. Argentine glaciers feed 39 hydrographic basins and are distributed along 3,500 kilometers of the Andes mountain range, and the inventory identifies glaciers in some 8,400 kilometers. One of the criticisms of the inventory by the governors is that it is outdated, while its defenders say it went through many economic problems due to lack of funding. Another key point is that it seeks to eliminate the automatic prohibition of extractive activities in periglacial areas, so that the development of economic activities is authorized as long as they are approved by an environmental impact assessment. Until now, protection depends on technical studies that demonstrate whether an area performs a relevant hydrological function. If it is not scientifically proven that the area provides water, it could be enabled for its exploitation.
