The public hearing on the modification of the Glacier Law It attracted the attention of society in an impressive way, since more than 100,000 people registered to exhibit. There is no previous example that can be compared.
Such was the massiveness of interest that the number of registered people exceeded almost 10 times the previous massive call, which occurred a decade ago, for the modification of the gas rate. It is striking that it also exceeded registrations to the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy law by more than 100 times. A fundamental issue for society.
What does this mean? What do we care about glaciers more than other things? Of course not. But it is a “symptom” that it has happened. It means that a good part of society perceived that an attempt was being made to modify a law for the benefit of a few, which protected an extremely important asset for everyone. Or, perhaps being very optimistic, that a part of society understood that the environment and its protection is not a whim of some, but something that we need, because humans are part of it.
Now, since more than 100,000 people, including individuals and legal entities, signed up, they “decided” that we could not all speak live while looking at the faces of the legislators. The regulations for the hearings are quite clear: they have the obligation to listen to everyone who wants to participate.
However, they chose to silence more than 99% of those registered. Even me. I do not think that my voice is more authorized than that of others, but it was striking that they silenced me since I was speaking on behalf of an entire institution: the Macá Tobiano Foundation. Of course, they used an “elegant” turn by asking us to send writings or videos, which obviously no one will ever read or see.
Those of us who have participated in other public hearings know that rarely what we say there has the slightest impact on the decision already made by -the vast majority- of legislators. In general, the opinions are sometimes already written before the hearings, so that it is a procedure, after which it is signed, “debated” and voted on.
But, What would I have said in the short time that I would have liked to have and that the government denied us? Something very simple that I already highlighted in previous columns.
The glacier law of 2010, still in force, was a pioneering law, designed to protect the most important resource for life, water. And it had a fundamentally important point: the national inventory of glaciers was carried out by CONICET researchers, in a unified manner and that guaranteed the greatest possible objectivity to define what was a glacial and periglacial environment. It freed governors from the risk of local lobbying. There was no one else saying what a glacier was and wasn’t.
The modification breaks the main basic logic of biodiversity conservation, which is the precautionary principle. It seeks to let the provinces define which glacier is important and which is not. The decision will be made by people who, logically, will be far below the training of national glacier specialists. Which, in addition, will be personnel hired by the governors.
We are in a context of global climate crisis. Environments will be transformed, many glaciers will shrink and large areas will be plunged into drought. This will happen in the coming decades, not hundreds of years. We need to be cautious and guarantee water for those critical moments.
Preserving water sources is protecting biodiversity. Much more so now that we are going through an extinction crisis, with species loss rates greater than the extinction in which the dinosaurs disappeared. Without glaciers there are several species that are going to become extinct, possibly the Macá Tobiano and many others. But, also, to protect the almost 7,000,000 Argentines and the entire industry that depend on glacial water. Without glaciers we also run out of wine!
It is today that we have the opportunity to stop this capricious modification, tailored by a few lobbyists for foreign mining companies. We have the opportunity not only not to modify it, but we can think about improving it, considering perfecting the glacier detection criteria and planning future scenarios..
It is now that we can prevent the provinces – or the governors in power – from unilaterally deciding which glaciers are useful or not. This is not paranoia, as it started to happen. In Río Negro, search permits have already been granted in critical areas, even before the law was modified.
As a CONICET researcher, as a biologist, as a conservationist and, mainly, as an Argentine, I consider that it is simply an aberration to modify a law that protects a resource of such transversal importance for biodiversity and society as water. It’s something basic. There is no economic argument that surpasses the importance of water.
We had achieved a national consensus, not without much discussion, that we are going to break it due to short-term ambition. Without glaciers there is no future.
