Painting the Andes. A white joke? Over the years scientists have thought up some outlandish ways of tackling global warming.

Firing mirrors into space to reflect the sun's rays, or feeding cattle garlic to reduce methane emissions are just a couple of examples.

However, the latest scheme may just rival them all: Whitewashing the Andean mountains.

At first thought this seems like an extremely expensive, if not outright ridiculous, plan.

However, there are scientists who believe this will be the first step to recuperating Peru's disappearing Andean glaciers. The World Bank clearly believes the latter.

This idea - the creation of 55-year-old Peruvian Eduardo Gold - has been chosen as one of the winners of the 100 Ideas to Save the Planet competition, organised by the World Bank in 2009.

With £135,000 of funding Mr Gold's project is already under way in a small area on the Chalon Sombrero peak, which lies 4,756 metres above sea level and 100 kilometres west of the regional capital, Ayacucho.

Glaciers have long since retreated from the peak, but Mr Gold hopes that his idea will reduce the effects of global warming in the area and help to "re-grow" the glacier.

Four men from the local village, Licapa, have so far whitewashed two hectares in two weeks and plan to paint the whole summit. They will then paint two other peaks totalling around 70 hectares overall.

The workers are using an environmentally-friendly mix of lime, industrial egg white and water, which is known to have been used since Peru's colonial times.

Mr Gold has no scientific qualifications, but has based his idea on the simple scientific principal of light reflection. When sunlight hits a white surface, it is reflected, which passes solar energy back through the atmosphere, instead of warming the earth's surface. The albedo of a surface is the measure of how strongly light is reflected from an object, ranging from zero (a dark surface) to one (a white surface). By whitewashing the rocks, the albedo of the surface changes, which cools the rock's surface and, in turn, generates a cooler micro-climate around the peak.

Licapa village lies a short distance down the valley and depends on Chalon Sombrero for its water supply. Residents have witnessed marked changes in temperature and diminishing water supplies over the last two decades and are very much in support of Mr Gold's project.

According to research carried out by the World Bank last year, 22 per cent of Peru's glaciers have melted away in the past 30 years.

Some scientists believe the remaining glaciers could disappear in the next 20 years, which would have a devastating effect on water supplies and hydroelectric power, not just locally, but across the whole of Peru.

Many people are sceptical of this latest scheme, but if, a very big if, Mr Gold's pilot project is successful, it could be used to stifle retreating glaciers across the Peruvian Andes and, perhaps, other parts of the Andean mountain chain.