Argentina has passed a landmark law that seeks to protect environmentally sensitive glaciers by imposing strict limits on mining. The Bill, passed by the Senate on Thursday last, prohibits mining near glaciers along Argentina's 5,000 km border with Chile.
The Bill was approved by a tight vote of 35 to 33, with one abstention, said a Reuters report. The Bill had been passed by the lower house of Parliament earlier in July.
President Cristina Kirchner had vetoed a 2008 Bill to protect glaciers, which was eventually instrumental in clearing the way for a mega project by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold. Lawmakers supporting the centre-left government of Kirchner have indicated that this time the president would not veto the measure.
The Bill has been opposed both by the mining industry in Argentina, as well as some mining friendly provincial governments, who depend on the revenues accrued from mining.
Argentina's mining sector is huge. It attracted $2.3 billion in investment in 2008, a phenomenal 1000 percent jump from 2003, according to the country's Undersecretariat of Mining. In 2008, mining exports fetched the country $3.9 billion.
One of the major projects in the pipeline is Barrick's Pascua Lama mine. Development of the project, one of the world's biggest untapped gold mines, entails a $US 3 billion investment over 25 years in the Andes along the Argentine-Chilean border.
Barrick believes the new law will not undermine its project. The company's vice president of corporate affairs, Rodrigo Jimenez, said, "We do not mine on glaciers and, in fact, Barrick has already implemented a comprehensive range of measures to protect them as well as other sensitive environmental areas around both the Veladero mine and the Pascua-Lama project."
Argentina's glaciers are an environmental hotspot, threatened by climate change. Almost all glaciers in the region are melting and the Upsala glacier, one of the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, has shrunk by 8 km in the last 25 years. The Southern Patagonian Icefield of Argentina and Chile is the southern remnant of the Patagonia Ice Sheet that covered the southern Andes Mountains during the last ice age.
