The UNESCO Courier - Volume 2025, Issue 1, 2025

Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. This is anything but good news for our planet. The influx of water from melting glaciers is disrupting the water cycle and raising sea levels, threatening coastal areas. The International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, declared by the United Nations for 2025, is an opportunity to reflect on the consequences of this phenomenon. It is only through a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that this major issue can be effectively addressed.

Despite predictions by many 20th century scientists, the glaciers of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania still exist. However, their surface area has decreased by 91 per cent since 1912, when they were first mapped. According to Douglas Hardy, glacier and climate specialist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (United States), their disappearance is inevitable.

Scientists are increasingly turning to satellites, robot submarines, hot water drills, and drones to monitor the cryosphere since collecting samples is becoming more costly and dangerous.

In the race to save melting glaciers, China has come up with creative solutions – such as nanomaterial blankets and artificial snow systems – to slow the melting process, and they are yielding promising results.

In Kyrgyzstan, as in the rest of the region, the melting glaciers are having a substantial impact on mountain populations facing water scarcity.

By restoring objects that are sometimes thousands of years old, melting ice is a gift for archaeologists: these relics from the past provide unprecedented information about the lives of prehistoric humans. But it’s a race against time to collect these objects before they disappear.

Scientists are not the only ones concerned by the melting of the glaciers. The cultural and spiritual life of indigenous mountain populations is also impacted.

Tourism in Iceland faces an uncertain future as the country’s iconic glaciers melt. The Nordic island is striving to find the right balance between preservation and profit in an era of “last-chance tourism”.

American artist Zaria Forman has accompanied NASA, the United States’ space agency, on missions documenting changes in Earth’s polar ice. Her large scale pastel drawings complement scientists’ observations by bringing to life the fragile beauty of icy landscapes.

Anything Can Happen and Probably Will – it would be hard to find a better title for Australian photographer Jesse Marlow’s series of images gleaned from his wanderings around Melbourne and Sydney. Indeed, each image is the beginning of a story, a sketch to be continued from the viewer’s imagination. A distracted passer-by, a few leaves stranded on the pavement, a silhouette bent over by the wind – all turn the city into a short-lived stage-set, where the incongruous vies with the poetic for a place.

Globally renowned British ethologist and anthropologist, Dr Jane Goodall is known for her pioneering research into the relationship between humans and animals, chimpanzees in particular. The influential environmental activist spoke at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 19 October 2024. Below are excerpts from her speech, in which she talks about her long fight to preserve wild animal life while conveying a message of peace and hope.

Sanctuaries of biodiversity, the African forests are home to the greatest diversity of primates in the world. But these intelligent, social creatures are under serious threat from deforestation and poaching. Therefore, we must step up conservation efforts to protect these natural treasures – forests and their emblematic inhabitants.

In a country where the literary scene is concentrated in the capital, writer Selva Almada claims to belong to the “interior” of Argentina, the province where she grew up. A finalist for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2024, she is one of the most powerful voices in Argentine literature, translated into many languages. She is also one of the region’s most influential feminist intellectuals.

Indigenous peoples, who make up just about 5 per cent of the global population yet own, occupy and use more than a quarter of the world’s land area, are essential for cultural diversity but face increasing threats. It is estimated that half of the world’s approximately 7,000 languages will disappear by 2100. Most of these are Indigenous languages. UNESCO has been at the forefront of efforts and initiatives to protect Indigenous communities and their unique knowledge since the last century.