Larger protection zone will be set up to prevent glacier damage by tourists

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will ban tourists from entering a 22,000 square kilometer glacier protection zone in the Tianshan Mountains.

"Glacier tourism brought in revenue of less than one billion yuan ($152 million) over the past dozen years, but the loss from shrinking glaciers is incalculable," Li Jidong from the regional tourism administration was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.

Li cited tourism, manufacturing, mining, vehicle emissions and grazing as additional reasons - besides climate change - that had caused accelerated glacier retreat in recent decades.