Opinion | What Venezuela’s last glacier meant to my country

Fast forward four years and La Corona has all but disappeared. The glacier has almost completely melted due to rising temperatures on the planet.

La Corona – in English ‘The Crown’ – was the jewel of Venezuela. La Corona, located in the Sierra Nevada National Park in northwestern Venezuela, was once one of the country’s six tropical glaciers.

The view, as I remember it from childhood, was magnificent. At 14,925 feet, the pristine snow of La Corona glistened at the summit of Humboldt Peak, contrasting beautifully with the sage green of the surrounding mountains.

But over the past 40 years, La Corona has shrunk from a massive 1,100 acres to less than five. In fact, the glacier has shrunk so much that scientists have reclassified it as an ice field.

The Venezuelan government tried to save La Corona. In February, Jehyson Guzman, the governor of Mérida, announced a plan to slow the melting by covering the ice with a plastic geotextile blanket, similar to those used to protect ski slopes in the summer.

But it was too late. The small piece of glacier that remains on Humboldt Peak will probably not be saved. Even worse, the blanket could disintegrate with sun exposure and release microplastics into the air and water.

While I’m sad that the most breathtaking view in my hometown is gone, I’m also reminded that Venezuela isn’t the only country dealing with the destruction of its natural landscape by climate change. Glaciers are disappearing all over the world.

Take the South Col. Mount Everest’s highest glacier loses about two meters of ice per year. This glacier will probably disappear within a few decades. The glaciers of Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska and Glacier National Park in Montana are also withering quickly.

Even if humanity reduces greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, half of the world’s glaciers are expected to disappear by the end of this century. Like Venezuela’s beloved La Corona, each of these glaciers has a story.

I don’t want La Corona to be remembered when it died. For Merideños, La Corona was more than just a glacier: it was a symbol of pride and identity.

Once known as ‘the city of eternal snow’, Mérida was, at least until recently, the only city in the country with a glacier. In its ice cream, La Corona reflected the essence of Venezuela: beautiful yet modest.

But Venezuela is no longer a reference point for majestic glaciers. Just as the melting of La Corona exposes the rugged earth beneath, Venezuelans are also being stripped of our national character.

That is the inescapable challenge of climate change: maintaining the identity of where we come from while nature around us disappears.