Glaciers now under attack from ice thieves: UN
Glaciers now under attack from ice thieves: UN
New York, Feb 3: Criminal gangs are becoming a threat to the world’s glaciers, which are already receding as a result of climate change, the United Nations said on Thursday, citing a case in Chile where police are investigating the theft of some 5,000 kilograms of millennia-old ice from the Jorge Montt glacier.
Mining for ice could pose a major additional threat to the 454 square-kilometre glacier, which is situated in Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, and is part of the 13,000-square kilometre Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the third largest frozen land mass in the world after Antarctica and Greenland, according to the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).
The Jorge Montt glacier is melting at a rate of one kilometre per year, making it one of the world’s most iconic symbols of global warming, UNISDR noted.
“The authorities in Chile are to be congratulated on clamping down on this illegal activity,” said Margareta Wahlström, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of UNISDR.
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