Argentina’s Senate has approved a controversial overhaul of the country’s glacier protection regime, advancing a reform push that would open up previously restricted areas to mining and hydrocarbons exploration.
The upper house granted initial approval to changes to the 2010 Glaciers Law on Thursday night by 40 votes to 31, with one abstention.
Several senior government officials, watching from the chamber’s galleries, celebrated jubilantly when approval was confirmed.
The bill will now pass the lower house Chamber of Deputies.
The reform, promoted by President Javier Milei’s government, seeks to redefine the scope of environmental protection around glaciers.
In practice, it would narrow the criteria for what qualifies as protected ice fields, limiting safeguards to those deemed “strategic water reserves.”
That shift would broaden the areas available for mining activity, particularly in the Andean provinces of San Juan, Mendoza, Catamarca, Jujuy and Salta, whose governors back the initiative and which hold significant mineral reserves.
Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party says the changes could lead to investments worth more than US$40 billion.
Under the proposed changes, provincial authorities would have exclusive responsibility for identifying which glaciers must remain protected, based on environmental impact assessments. They would also be empowered to authorise mining and hydrocarbons projects accordingly.
Environmental groups argue that the reform weakens national safeguards, weakens protections for strategic water reserves and hands discretionary power to provincial governments with strong fiscal incentives to promote extractive industries.
Tensions
In a statement, President Milei hailed the approval, declaring that "the era of environmentalists flying the flag of a false noble cause is coming to an end." His office said the changes "represent true environmental federalism."
Earlier in the day, tensions had spilled onto the streets of Buenos Aires.
Prior to the start of debate, 12 activists from Greenpeace climbed over the railings outside Congress and staged a brief protest. Sitting on toilet props labelled “glacier law,” they unfurled banners reading: “Senators, don’t shit in our water – hands off the glacier law.”
Police swiftly intervened, confiscated the banners and detained the demonstrators. All were later released, a Greenpeace spokesperson confirmed.
During the protest, a cameraman for the A24 television channel was knocked to the ground by police, handcuffed and removed from the scene with blood visible on his face in footage broadcast live.
Senator Patricia Bullrich, former national security minister, said on entering Congress that the circumstances of the cameraman’s detention were under investigation to determine whether the use of force had been disproportionate.
Debate
Inside the chamber, the debate exposed a deep divide over the balance between development and environmental protection – not least among the opposition Peronist coalition.
Only one senator abstained, Julieta Corroza of the single-member caucus La Neuquinidad.
Senator Flavia Royón of Salta, who served as energy secretary between 2022 and 2023, rejected what she described as a “false dichotomy” between growth and conservation.
“Water is above everything,” she argued, insisting the reform “does not attack that principle.”
Opposition Peronist lawmaker Anabel Fernández Sagasti countered that the bill shifts Argentina “from a scientific paradigm to an open discretionary one” in defining protected areas.
However, La Libertad Avanza Senator Agustín Coto argued the reform “responds to the need to harmonise the regulations,” insisting that under the new rules all banned activities would remain prohibited in glaciers and the periglacial environment.
Another ruling party Senator Bruno Olivera described the current framework as marked by “legal ambiguity,” saying the new law would “better protect water while enabling provincial development.”
However, former social development minister Alicia Kirchner – a fierce Kirchnerite – called the bill an “institutional regression” and urged its return to committee, arguing it lacked legal certainty.
Current law
The original Glacier Protection Law, in force since 2010, established nationwide minimum standards to safeguard ice fields as strategic freshwater reserves.
Critics of the reform warn that narrowing that definition risks undermining long-term water security in a country already grappling with climate stress and mounting pressure to attract foreign investment into its lithium and metals sectors.
The key change introduces a distinction within so-called “periglacial forms.” Only those formations that serve as “strategic water reserves” or contribute to hydrological basin recharge would retain full protection.
Areas deemed not to fulfil a proven water function could be opened to development.
In effect, not all periglacial territory would remain shielded from exploitation – only formations with demonstrable hydrological value.
The current law, in force since 2010, protects both visible glaciers and periglacial formations composed of frozen soils, freshwater, rock and sediment. These high-altitude ecosystems act as freshwater reservoirs and play a central role in regulating hydrological and geomorphological balance.
The reform maintains the blanket ban on economic activity on glaciers themselves but creates a pathway for investment projects in periglacial areas lacking verified water functions.
It also establishes a National Glacier Inventory to be compiled by the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (IANIGLA), coordinated by the Energy Secretariat as the enforcing authority. The body would identify glaciers and periglacial formations nationwide and determine which meet the hydrological criteria for protection.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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