More than 850,000 people have joined a collective legal action in Argentina seeking to suspend a recently passed amendment to the country's glacier protection law, which critics say opens protected and peri-glacial zones (areas surrounding glaciers) to mining and petroleum activity. The reform, championed by President Javier Milei and mining-province governments in the Andean region — particularly San Juan and Mendoza, which hold significant copper and lithium reserves — transfers decision-making power over which areas may be mined to the provinces themselves. Environmental groups argue the change threatens drinking water access for over seven million people, while the province of La Pampa has filed a separate legal challenge, as its rivers depend on glacial meltwater from neighbouring mining provinces; the matter may ultimately be decided by Argentina's Supreme Court on constitutional grounds.