The voices of glaciers : stories of grief and hope amidst shrinking glaciers in the tropics

During the Celebrations of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025 in Paris on the 20th and 21st March 2025 the IGE has presented the results of several initiatives. Among those, the book “The voices of glaciers : stories of grief and hope amidst shrinking glaciers in the tropics”, co-edited by UNESCO and IRD Editions.

As glacier melting continues unabated at all latitudes, the loss of glaciers in the tropics provides an early glimpse of how a world without ice might be. This book gives voice to 35 diverse individuals whose lives are tied to tropical glaciers, relating their feelings, perceptions and experiences, as well as how they are adapting to a transforming reality. These testimonies, ranging from local Indigenous voices, rangers, tourists, scientists, alpinists, artists and more, with perspectives from disciplines from anthropology to glaciology to sustainability science, provide a unique window on the felt effects of glacier loss. The images showing the loss of ice of glaciers in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia over the last 175 years tell their own powerful and incontrovertible story. By 2050, nearly half of the tropical glaciers in this book, including five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, four Biosphere Reserves and one Global Geopark, will be gone, and the majority will have lost around 90% of the surface area they covered during the Little Ice Age (circa 16th–19th centuries). This is a stark illustration of the impacts of climate change already occurring in some of the planet’s most vulnerable regions, and a bellwether of the future of glaciers elsewhere, and the people that depend on them, if we fail to mitigate it.

A video teaser of the book was presented during the celebrations of the International Year in Paris

Several photographs and testimonies of the book are displayed in two photographic exhibitions linked to the International Year. The physical photographic exhibition titled Glaciers in Focus - Guardians of Earth’s Climate Heritage will be displayed at UNESCO’s building fences until April 30th. A digital exhibition was displayed during March 20th and 21st and will be displayed at other events hosted by UNESCO through the year.

A presentation of the book can also be found in the following podcast of the Swiss Radio :
https://www.rts.ch/audio-podcast/2025/audio/premiere-edition-de-la-journee-mondiale-des-glaciers-28828042.html

Reference
PALOMO I., LANA S., RABATEL A., DANGLES O., 2025 – The voices of glaciers : stories of grief and hope amidst shrinking glaciers in the tropics. With the collaboration of Cauvy-Fraunié S., Ceballos J. L., Adler C., Mark B., Marchant R., Morales Arnao B., Pérez Arias J. D., Aguilar Durán D. & Zimmer A. Marseille-Paris, IRD Éditions-UNESCO. https://www.editions.ird.fr/produit/735/9782709930734/the-voices-of-