China is taking action to protect glaciers from the ravages of tourism at a time when they are already threatened by climate change in the Xinjiang region in northwest China.
Although the regional tourism administration says that “Glacier tourism brought in $152 million over the past dozen years, but the loss from shrinking glaciers in incalculable.”
In that region, average temperatures have risen about a third of a degree (C) a year over the past 50 years, almost three times the global average. China has 46,377 glaciers, with nearly half located in Xinjiang.
Tourists will still be able to see the glaciers, but only from a distance. That’s a big difference from the direction taken in other places: One of Iceland’s newest attractions is a huge tunnel bored through a glacier to take tourists inside the ice.
