Periglacial Environments as Failed Objects of Governance in Argentina’s National Glacier Inventory

SOFÍA LANA; LETICIA SALDI; LAURA ZALAZAR; FACUNDO ROJAS

Latin American Research Review (LARR)

Cambridge University Press

Año: 2025

In 2010, Argentina approved the world’s first Glacier Law, initially drafted to halt mega-mining in the Andes. To effectively protect all glaciers and periglacial environments as strategic hydrological reserves, the Law assigned the National Argentine Institute on Snow Studies, Glaciology, and Environmental Sciences (IANIGLA) the creation of the first National Glacier Inventory. As an institution in the region specialized in snow and ice research, IANIGLA was an obvious choice. Yet, our qualitative study on IANIGLA scientists explores how mismatched understandings regarding what was being protected and how resulted in the failure to effectively govern periglacial environments. We argue that this failure partly stemmed from tensions in upscaling and downscaling science, understood as contradictory practices used to transform what scientists conceive as global elements of nature into locally governable objects. Our research contributes to reflections on the role of science in contentious environmental governance efforts.