The treasured 'eternal snow' on this tropical island is about to disappear forever

The cherished “eternal snow” on this tropical island is on the verge of vanishing for good

Only tiny remnants of snow are left on Papua’s Sudirman Range

Papua’s mountains lie close to the equator, yet they have been crowned with “eternal snow” for centuries.

The peaks in this Indonesian region on the world’s second-largest island, just north of Australia, have given scientists endless clues about Earth’s climate past.

For many Papuans, they are also the centre of the spiritual universe — a Mecca or a Vatican, as one activist describes it.

But now, almost all of the snow has disappeared.

A hundred years ago, the 300km (190-mile) span of the Sudirman Range held snow and permanent ice on all four of its main peaks.

Today, only small patches around Puncak Jaya, also called Carstensz Pyramid, still have any snow at all. These are expected to vanish completely within a year or two.

Glacier coverage around the peak has fallen from nearly 1,900 hectares (4,700 acres) in the 19th Century to around 16 hectares (40 acres) now. Nearly whole glaciers have disappeared within a single human lifetime.

“There is a profound unfairness in this,” says Marie Šabacká, a Czech glacier ecologist who went to Puncak Jaya last March in an effort to be among the last scientists to study Papua’s “eternal snow”.

She says Papua’s tropical glaciers are distinctive because they are cut off from other glacier systems by thousands of kilometres. Papua contains the “last remaining tropical ice” between the Andes and Himalayas.

Ice cores drilled from the slopes of Puncak Jaya hold a record of climate history.

Scientists can use them to learn about atmospheric conditions in the region and to understand shifts in the planet’s warmest ocean waters surrounding the island — the tropical Pacific and Western Pacific Warm pool.

But this archive is disappearing before scientists have had enough time to fully examine it.

Šabacká says the retreat of Papua’s glaciers is being driven by the same forces affecting ice worldwide: a warming atmosphere caused by human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.

As temperatures climb, the freezing point rises higher up mountains, so more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, even in places that once regularly saw snowfall.

El Niño events can speed up this process, while local factors such as cloud cover, snowfall and mountain topography affect how fast it happens.

Papua’s mountains are only 450km (280 miles) south of the equator, where “permanent ice can survive only at very high altitudes and within a narrow range of climatic conditions,” Šabacká says.

She adds that even a slight temperature rise, a higher freezing point or a shift from snowfall to rainfall can decide whether a glacier survives at all.

The glaciers’ retreat shows that Earth has been warming over a long period — and their disappearance “removes both a biological habitat and part of a culturally significant landscape”.

Šabacká, seen collecting samples from Puncak Jaya, says Papua’s disappearing glaciers are unique because they are so far from other glacier systems

At least five groups of Indigenous people have long had strong spiritual connections to Puncak Jaya.

The Moni people call it Mbainggela and believe their ancestors watch over the mountain. To the Amungme people, the range is known as Nemangkawi, or the “White Arrow”.

“Parents and grandparents prayed their children would have hearts like the White Arrow, never straying from the proper path,” says Elfrida Natkime, a young Amungme woman. “It symbolises honesty, purity and moral integrity.”

In traditional Amungme beliefs, Nemangkawi represents how people should live.

Amungme environmental activist Adolfina Kum stresses how vital the peak is to her people — and how traditions and cultural foundations risk being broken apart as the ice melts.

“How would Muslims feel if Mecca were destroyed? How would Catholics feel if Rome or the Vatican were destroyed?” she asks. “For the Amungme people, that is what it feels like when Nemangkawi is destroyed.”

The mountain carries enormous spiritual meaning for Indigenous people like Justinus, a man from the Moni tribe

For many Indigenous Papuans, the glacier’s disappearance is not an isolated event.

The discovery of huge copper and gold deposits transformed the region in the 20th Century, and extractive industrial projects have reshaped parts of the landscape.

Entire mountain faces have been dug away, and roads, industrial infrastructure and settlements have altered the surrounding valleys.

Papuans say the development has brought jobs, roads, education and economic opportunities, but also environmental damage and decades of social conflict. Some have lost access to their ancestral lands as mining expanded.

“Every time I see the mountains, I feel amazed, but I also feel sadness,” says Elfrida Natkime. “Since the company came, I have seen the exploitation. But the development has also provided a livelihood for many people.”

As local communities watch their sacred landscapes change, scientists and explorers are racing to record what remains.

Using drones and three-dimensional mapping techniques, Danish researcher Klaus Thymann and his team have produced a detailed model of what is left.

From the early 2000s to 2025, the glaciated area has shrunk by 95%, he says. “There’s almost no ice left. Those are the facts.”

Thymann says glaciers are “incredibly powerful” indicators of climate change.

“When people hear that something described as ‘eternal’ is disappearing, it triggers a reaction,” he explains.

Adolfina Kum believes communities “lose an important source of strength” when sacred mountains, forests or ancestral places are disturbed.

“I often describe it as pulling out the roots of a tree. Once the roots are removed, the tree loses its foundation.”