Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: NGOs Demand Protection for Glaciers

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 12 2012 (IPS) - Environmental organizations in Argentina have called on the country’s Supreme Court of Justice to order a halt to the activities of a mining company operating in a glacier area. The mining company in question is Canadian-based Barrick Gold, which has been exploiting the Veladero gold mine in the western Argentine province of San Juan since 2005 and is operating in a glacier area according to its own environmental impact assessment.

Gonzalo Strano of Greenpeace Argentina told Tierramérica that the request was presented to the court in the same suit filed by a private citizen from San Juan in 2009, which has now reached the country’s highest judicial body.

The suit was initially filed for environmental damages, but in 2011, Argentina passed the Law of Minimum Budgets for the Protection of Glaciers and the Periglacial Environment, which requires an inventory of these bodies of ice for the authorization of activities by private companies. The inventory, which is the responsibility of the provincial government, has yet to be carried out.