Argentina's Caves Threatened by Mining, Tourism, Experts Say

Kelly Hearn in Buenos Aires
for National Geographic News

December 1, 2006

Mining and tourism threaten Argentina's cave systems, say critics, who worry that the activities are destroying fragile underground ecosystems and archaeological sites.

"There are many threats and almost no laws to deal with them," said Carlos Benedetto, president of the Argentine Federation of Speleology (FADE), a leading cave science and exploration group.

"Where laws do exist, they are rarely enforced." (Related: Explore Central America's longest cave.)

Argentina, which has over 300 registered caves and countless unexplored systems, has relied on mining and tourism following the collapse of its economy five years ago.

"Mining activity affects dozens of caves in the country," Benedetto said. "A national law forces … companies to carry out a study of environmental impact, but in few cases is it applied correctly."

Meanwhile, souvenir-snatching tourists add to the damage, breaking limestone stalagmites and stalactites from cave floors and ceilings.

"People don't realize that it takes a stalactite more than a thousand years to grow just one centimeter," Benedetto said, adding that paleoclimate researchers use the formations to reconstruct ancient climate patterns from millions of years ago.

Cave Tourism

Even seemingly innocuous human activity, such as cave walks, can damage underground ecologies, experts say.

Bats, crustaceans, fish, insects, spiders, and other cave-dwelling fauna have adapted to live in the very specific temperatures and dark, humid environments found in the underground ecosystems.

With sufficient numbers, heat from lights, human bodies, and other human activities can raise cave temperatures, says Buenos Aires-based geographer and mathematician Gabriel Redonte.

Redonte notes that a mere 2-degree-Fahrenheit (1.1-degree-Celsius) rise is enough to kill some cave species.

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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