In some cases, communities have signed agreements with companies that seek lithium only to discover that those agreements left them with barren land and little money - a common experience for rural and indigenous groups that live where natural resources are abundant.īut that’s not the story for 33 indigenous communities in the Salinas Grandes area, including those where Alancay and Chávez live. Some companies have already begun lithium exploration in the Salinas Grandes, while others have extracted the mineral from other salt flats in the region. Multiple international mining companies have sought concessions here to explore for and mine lithium, in a bid to cash in on what experts say could be one of the most lithium-rich places on earth. Salinas Grandes, the salt flat that straddles the line dividing Salta and Jujuy provinces in Argentina’s northern tip, is among a handful of sites that are in high demand among mining companies seeking not only lithium - a key ingredient in high-tech batteries that power cellphones, electric cars and other products - but also boron, potash and other minerals. “The salt lake is a sacred place for us, a part of our family.

Workers had drilled through the salt crust to extract samples to analyze conditions for potential lithium exploration. She evicted them and rushed to the lake to see what damage had already taken place. Verónica Chávez, who represents the Santuario de Tres Pozos community, says she took lodgers into her home but realized after they’d settled in that they worked for South American Salars S.A., a mining company that is a subsidiary of Australia-based Orocobre Ltd. Other local people found out about the mining activities in equally abrupt ways. She discovered that her story offers an entirely different, and surprising, picture of often-marginalized communities in rural Argentina. INSIDE THE STORY: A news story published by a large media organization challenged a Global Press reporter to reconsider whether her own coverage was worthwhile.

Salt flats argentina