File number: chbe0072

© South American Pictures/ Sue Mann

Chile: tourists visiting the San Rafael glacier. This enormous glacier with a front reaching over 4kms wide and 70m high is part of a UNESCO MAB [Man and the Biosphere programme reserve]. The San Rafael glacier is now quickly receding, perhaps as much as a kilometre in ten years said to be due to higher temperatures rather than lack of rainfall on the Patagonian icecap.