Environmental activists from Chile and Argentina have come up with a plan to defend the Andean glaciers from mining and are challenging the 1997 treaty signed by the two countries on mining integration. Representatives from communities and non-governmental groups from Chile and the western Argentine province of San Juan, opposed to mining in the Andes Mountains, gathered Jul. 14-15 in Vallenar, in the northern Chilean region of Atacama.

The participants questioned the bilateral treaty, which has allowed controversial projects like Pascua Lama to forge ahead, though they are located near valuable glaciers.

“We drafted a joint plan to defend the glaciers and campaigns to block international financing for the projects,” activist Lucio Cuenca, with the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, told Tierramérica.

“The same thing is happening on the border of Peru and Ecuador, in the Cóndor Range, and in the pantanal (wetlands) zone between Bolivia and Brazil,” he said.