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The Dragón de la Patagonia (Andiperla willinki) is, by most accounts, not very dragon-like. A 15mm long, non-flying plecopteran that resembles a bit of a lost and cold earwig, it doesn’t – fortunately for me and my colleagues - breathe fire. It is remarkable in plenty of other ways, though, being the only species in the Patagonian region of Chile and Argentina to spend its entire living existence on the ice, feeding off micro-algae. Given its intolerance to contamination, it’s a good sign that the water in the ice is pure. This is perhaps unsurprising in Chile’s largest national park, Bernardo O’Higgins; an immense refuge of biodiversity just shy of the size of Switzerland, home to only a handful of tiny villages.

But beyond playing host to a real-life dragon, the world’s glaciers are a vital part of many ecosystems worldwide. It is for this reason that the United Nations have named 2025 as the , with March 21^st named as the World Day for Glaciers. Glaciers provide vital water resources to half of humanity for domestic use, agriculture and hydropower. They are also sacred places for many cultures and communities and attract millions of tourists globally, providing an important source of revenue and inspiration. around retreating glaciers reveal our long and complex human history of contact and co-existence with glacial ecosystems.

Charlie Tokeley

Our work to sustain glaciers extends into all aspects of our relationship with the natural world. A found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C could save glaciers in two-thirds of World Heritage sites, which currently covers 10% of the world’s glaciated areas. The same study found that World Heritage glaciers are losing on average some 58 billion tonnes of ice every year - equivalent to the total annual volume of water consumed in France and Spain together - and contribute to almost 5% of global observed sea-level rise. Iconic glaciers in and have already met their demise.

Effective protected and conserved areas are an important piece in the puzzle to preserve our world’s glaciers. Whilst there’s little that area-based conservation can do to limit glacier volume loss from globally warming temperatures, they can help authorities (whether local and Indigenous communities or local and national government) control and restrict other threats to glaciers, such as mining and ski-tourism.

As it stands, are currently within protected areas, whilst a further 17% are covered by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Effective, well-connected protected area coverage for glaciated areas is relatively low in Asian mountain rangers and the Canadian Artic, by contrast, and leave plenty of opportunities to secure a brighter future for glaciers in these regions. Mining in these regions, for example in the and in , directly threatens glaciers by accumulating dust and deposits on the glaciers surface, accelerating glacial melt by reducing reflectivity; contaminating water from glacial melt with mining runoff; and directly altering glacial ecosystems to build infrastructure and roads.

Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥â€™s support for protected and conserved areas that contain glaciers comes in many forms. Through the , sites must have adequate measures in place to ensure the long-term preservation of the conserved ecosystems. Criterion 2.2 demands that the design of the site in its landscape/seascape context support long-term maintenance of the major site values, for example, whereas Criterion 2.3 requires that threats and challenges to major site values are described and understood in sufficient detail to enable effective planning and management to address them. As such, iconic glaciated sites such as Parc National des Ecrins in France and Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy stand as positive examples for the management and monitoring of glacial melt.

Elsewhere, the initiative provides an opportunity for sites in glacial hotspots such as Greenland and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon to access funding. The second window for applications will open in Spring 2025Ìýfor organisations that seek to achieve tangible and measurable impacts in terms of biodiversity conservation, sustainable development and/or sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystem services, including ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation or mitigation.

Pixabay

Finally, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ continues to support local and Indigenous communities to pursue locally-relevant conservation models, such as ICCAs, to ensure equitable governance of natural resources. A , held in Geneva and the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ headquarters in Gland, included amongst others Saami communities from the Artic circle and local communities from Chamonix, France. Whether undertaking traditional grazing activities on or around glaciers; occupying the valleys left by glacial retreat; or living off the rivers, valleys and wider ecosystems nourished by glaciers, the future of these communities is inextricably linked to the future of their glaciers.

2025 is an opportunity to focus international attention on the role and importance of glaciers and glacial ecosystems to effect meaningful action at all levels. Establishing and strengthening effective and equitably governed protected and conserved areas is a crucial step in ensuring that the challenges facing glacial preservation are minimised and managed.

In doing so, we can prove that saving our planet’s glaciers is no less likely than finding a real-life dragon.

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