I previously wrote about plans to relocate a glacier in Chile to get at some gold underneath... well I learned today that the mining company, Barrick Gold Corp., is Canadian. How embarassing. Barrick was planning to dig up selected bits of the glaciers and then dump them somewhere nearby along the border with Argentina. So far the governement has approved the digging but banned moving the ice. So wierd.
I happy to hear that the environmental battle is just getting started - local residents along with Oceana and Greenpeace are planning appeals to Chile's council of ministers.
Supposedly half of the controversy is semantic: Barrick has insisted that the ice fields -- Toro 1, with an area of 138,500 square meters, Toro 2 at 129,200 square meters and Esperanza at 78,900 square meters -- can't be called glaciers. The company prefers the terms ice reservoirs, ice masses or glaciarets.
What the Hell is a "glaciaret"? Sounds more like an expensive cocktail to me.
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A quick search of the internet does not return the word glaciaret except for an Italian reference.
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