Two governors from the Northwest of the country, meeting this week at a mining convention in Germany, promised that soon in Argentina there will be new conditions for extractive investments.
They told it to representatives of large global corporations, while they looked askance at what their phone made with lithium warned them: that the omnibus law promoted by the Government was being scrapped without pause, but the chapter that proposes the modification - or almost annihilation - of the
Glacier Law
remained firm, supported by a strong lobby.
In the end, the rule was approved in general and starting Tuesday each of the articles that remained standing will be discussed in particular.
One of those that generates the most controversy is the one that practically cancels the glacier law.
This change would imply a lack of protection of strategic natural resources and at the same time a liberation of geographical possibilities for the mining business.
The modification has explicit support from President Milei.
Local environmentalism, so ideologically diverse, agrees with what it sees behind everything: the hand of companies
like Barrick Gold, installed in San Juan, or the firms that operate and explore for the coveted lithium of Catamarca.
“Deputies from different blocks (from all) of mining provinces are coming together to advance the treatment of the Omnibus Law against the Glacier Law, at the request of the large transnational mining companies.
We named it 'Barrick Gold Interblock'.
It's simple: either you vote in favor of life, glaciers, water or you vote in favor of the lobby," says environmental lawyer Enrique Viale, leading the defense of the full validity of the current law.
“Until Tuesday, the entire environmental chapter of the omnibus law was lifted, but suddenly a strong lobby of legislators from the provinces began and on Wednesday the modification to the glacier law was in the project.
This week, environmental organizations are going to denounce the strong work that the deputies did in favor of the current geopolitics that voraciously requires our natural resources,” adds Viale.
Omnibus Law: changes to the Glacier Law
The proposed changes to Law 26,639, known as the Glacier Law, have scientists and environmentalists on alert.
According to his vision, the new project contains
modifications that go against the protection of strategic water reserves
in solid state.
Mendoza.
Glacier covered with rock glacier, Tunuyán.
2013. M. Castro national glacier inventory.
Climate change is affecting all regions of the planet, they say, and in the Andes Mountains, the increase in temperature and the decrease in solid precipitation have generated a decrease
in river flows
, a
reduction in the size of glaciers and a degradation of
mountain
permafrost
.
Climate projections for the coming decades indicate that these trends will continue or even increase in some cases.
Along these lines, scientists from Conicet and from different universities in the country, aligned with various environmental organizations, expressed in a letter addressed to Congress that the proposed modifications
“are imprecise and inconsistent
and are not based on the latest advances in scientific knowledge about glaciers.” , the periglacial environment and the hydrological cycle of the Andes”.
The law still in force establishes that glaciers and the periglacial environment are public goods that must be preserved as strategic water reserves for the current and future benefit of the Argentine population.
“The proposed modifications substantially restrict the surface area under protection, excluding an enormous amount of ice bodies and
ignoring the ecosystem role of glaciers
and the periglacial environment,” the experts say.
The new project does not specify the characteristics or requirements that uncovered and covered glaciers must have.
Perennial snow patches or glaciers are also excluded, which are, along with rock glaciers, the most numerous types of ice bodies in the Andes of Argentina.
“In extensive semi-arid regions of Cuyo and the Argentine Northwest, these elements constitute important sources of water for the surrounding populations,” say teachers from the University of Cuyo.
With respect to the periglacial environment, the project only proposes protecting one of its characteristic elements, the “active” debris glaciers, leaving out the rest of the ice bodies that make up this environment.
It also maintains that “rock or debris glaciers active in the periglacial environment” must meet a series of imprecise requirements that undermine the spirit of current protection.
Projects on hold
The environmental organization Greenpeace believes that the new regulations will allow at least 44 more glaciers throughout the country to be excluded from the regulations that prevent industrial activity.
The data comes from a technical report from the National Ministry of Environment that indicates that there are a total of
322 mining projects
in different degrees of progress, of which 77 are in the basins inventoried by the Argentine Institute of Nivology and Glaciology (Ianigla). in the national glacier survey.
Of these projects,
44 would be found near or on bodies of ice
.
They are mostly silver, gold, copper, uranium and now lithium.
One of the main projects that would be free to move forward if the law is modified is none other than
Veladero
, the most important in the San Juan province and one of the largest in the country.
Sector sources often argue that
Barrick Gold
cannot expand the deposit to the new areas where they found good values due to the impediments established by the current law as well as this one.
Veladero, the scene of controversial spills that occurred years ago, is a gold and silver mine located at an altitude of between 4,000 and 4,850 meters above sea level.
The Veladero site in the Province of San Juan.
In Argentina there are 16,968 glaciers;
all protected by the law in question.
There are 16,078 on the Andes Mountains and 890 on the South Atlantic Islands, which occupy an area of 8,484 square kilometers, a size equivalent to 41 times the city of Buenos Aires.
History of a law
The Glacier Law
was the product of an important social debate
and had scientific advice from experts in the field.
It was approved twice in the National Congress.
In 2008 and 2010.
Cristina Kirchner vetoed it in 2010
, in a controversial measure, almost at the request of the mining sector, known as the “Barrick Veto.”
But the regulations were again in force.
A mining project in San Juan.
In June 2019, the Supreme Court declared the constitutionality of the Glacier Law.
The ruling meant a brake for the mining industry and for the national government, which at that time sought, as now, to modify the law to give the green light to new projects.
The decision of the highest court came as the end point of a long journey, which the mining company Barrick Gold had begun in 2011.
The company then asked that the legality of the regulations be reviewed.
He proposed that the geographical and morphological limits of the places where the activity can be practiced should be redefined because to a large extent, as the law is written, it left them out of business.
All that review, finally, returned with Javier Milei's omnibus bill and has just obtained half a sanction in Deputies.
MG