Marcela Peralta, an Argentine biologist specializing in cave ecosystems, reports that cave tourists also generate wind currents that disperse airborne parasitic mushrooms and other exotic microorganisms.
"Tourist activity also disrupts hibernation and breeding patterns of bat colonies, affecting the microorganisms that depend upon their wastes," she wrote in a recent study.
Some Argentine cave-dwelling insects and spiders share a lineage with African and Indonesian species, a connection forged in the distant past when Earth's continents formed a single supercontinent.
Caves to Save
A lack of legal protections has allowed many of Argentina's prime cave systems to suffer irreparable damage, critics say.
According to FADE, half of the Capillitas cave in Catamarca Province was destroyed in the 1980s after miners discovered stalactites made of a rare type of crystal known as rodocrosita. Artisans quickly snatched them up to make jewelry.
"Now the cave is ruined forever," Benedetto said.
In the 1990s tour companies installed generators, electric cables, and iron stairways in the well-known Las Brujas ("The Witches") cave in Mendoza Province. Standing water enabled stairways to rust and contaminate the cave.
"It was outfitted for tourism without taking into account speleological studies that had been carried out over several decades," Redonte said.
"Environmental studies were done only after damage to the cave was obvious." Redonte notes that some caves, such as Cuchillo Cura in Neuquén Province, have come under Argentine legal protections.
Meanwhile, the Cueva de los Manos ("Cave of the Hands") has been recognized by UNESCO, the UN scientific and cultural body, as a World Heritage site.
The Patagonian cave holds prehistoric paintings from some of South America's earliest-known societies. Images of human hands stenciled on walls were likely made by hunter-gather communities living in the region some 13,000 years ago.
(Related: "Borneo Cave Art Mystery")
"But the majority caves of the country lack controls," Redonte said. "Though Argentine law prohibits it, tourism operations are being conducted by private individuals who own the land where the caves are located."
Redonte's complaints are not isolated, and provincial governments in Mendoza and Neuquén have responded, passing legislation to contain cave damage caused by limestone and gypsum mining.
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