Extractivism and its socio-environmental impact in South America. Overview of the “lithium triangle”
Keywords:
geopolitics, extractivism, lithium, socio-environmental impacts, local communities
Abstract
This article aims to give an overview of the socio-environmental impacts of the extractive process in South America. Half of all lithium reserves on the planet are located between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, the so-called “lithium triangle”. Lands where the transformation process is often opposed by local organizations that attempt a dialectic of negotiation/resistance of a territory harming communities and damaging fragile ecosystems. The exploitation of local water resources caused by the mining process has a strong impact on ancestral territories. Water resources are contaminated, diverted and consumed by the lithium mining process causing conflicts and exacerbating the long process of expropriation of local communities. The displacement of populations, forced by the intensive development of mining activities, leaves the population in a very high position of vulnerability. In these territories, the objective must be (1) to adapt local infrastructures to the new technological needs of the sector (eg. green technologies), (2) to focus on projects that benefit the local community both socially and environmentally.
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References
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Comisión Nacional del Litio. 2010. Litio: Una fuente de en- ergía, una oportunidad para Chile. https://biblioteca. sernageomin.cl/opac/datafiles/95592-2.pdf.
De Ambroggi, Camilla. 2020. “La riconfigurazione delle lotte indigene contro l’estrattivismo nella Bolivia plurinazionale.” In Logistica e America Latina, edited by Carlotta Benvegnù, Niccolò Cuppini, Mattia Frapporti, Floriano Milesi, and Maurilio Pirone, 47–97. Bologna: Università di Bologna.
Fornillo, Bruno. 2018. “La energía del litio en Argentina y Bolivia: Comunidad, extractivismo y posdesarrollo.” Colombia Internacional 93:179–201. https://doi.org/10. 7440/colombiaint93.2018.07.
Fornillo, Bruno, and Julián Zicari. 2017. “La energía del litio en Sudamérica.” In La política del ambiente en América Latina: Una aproximación desde el cambio ambiental global, edited by Ma. Griselda Günther and Ricardo A. Gutiérrez, 185–206. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
Garcés, Ingrid, and Gabriel Álvarez. 2020. “Water Mining and Extractivism of the Salar de Atacama, Chile.” WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment 245:189– 199. https://doi.org/10.2495/EID200181.
Holzbecher, Ekkehard. 2005. “Groundwater flow pattern in the vicinity of a salt lake.” Hydrobiologia 532:233–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-004-6421-7.
Houston, John, Andrew Butcher, Peter Ehren, Keith Evans, and Linda Godfrey. 2011. “The Evaluation of Brine Prospects and the Requirement for Modifications to Filing Stan- dards.” Economic Geology 106 (7): 1125–1239. https://doi.org/10.2113/econgeo.106.7.1225.
Huisman, J., T. Ciuta, F. Mathieux, S. Bobba, K. Georgitzikis, and D. Pennington. 2020. RMIS – Raw materials in the battery value chain. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/239710.
Janikowska, Olga, and Joanna Kulczycka. 2021. “Impact of Minerals Policy on Sustainable Development of Mining Sector – a Comparative Assessment of Selected EU Countries.” Mineral Economics 34 (2): 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13563-021-00248-5.
Khobragade, Krishna. 2020. “Impact of Mining Activity on Environment: An Overview.” International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications 10 (5): 784–791. https://doi.org/10.29322/ijsrp.10.05.2020.p10191.
Liu, Wenjuan, Datu B. Agusdinata, and Soe W. Myint. 2019. “Spatiotemporal Patterns of Lithium Mining and Environmental Degradation in the Atacama Salt Flat, Chile.” International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 80:145–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jag.2019.04.016.
Mancini, Lucia, and Serenella Sala. 2018. “Social Impact As- sessment in the Mining Sector: Review and Comparison of Indicators Frameworks.” Resources Policy 57:98–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.02.002.
Manhart, Andreas, Regine Vogt, Michael Priester, Günter Dehoust, Andreas Auberger, Markus Blepp, Peter Dolega, et al. 2019. “The environmental criticality of primary raw materials – A new methodology to assess global environmental hazard potentials of minerals and metals from mining.” Mineral Economics 32:91–107. https:
//doi.org/10.1007/S13563-018-0160-0.
Marazuela, M. A., E. Vázquez-Suñé, C. Ayora, A. García- Gil, and T. Palma. 2019. “The effect of brine pumping on the natural hydrodynamics of the Salar de Atacama: The damping capacity of salt flats.” Science of the Total Environment 654:1118–1131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. scitotenv.2018.11.196.
Morales Balcázar, Ramón. 2021. “Crisis y minería del litio en el salar de Atacama. La necesidad de una mirada desde la justicia climática.” In Salares andinos. Ecología de saberes por la protecciòn de nuestros salres y humedales, edited by Ramón Morales Balcázar, 69–82. Antofagasta: Observatorio Plurinacional de Salares Andinos.
Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros de América Latina (OC- MAL). 2020. Litio y derechos humanos. Santiago de Chile. https://www.ocmal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/ 07/Boletin-Litio-y-DDHH.pdf.
Romero-Toledo, Hugo. 2019. “Extractivismo en Chile: La producción del territorio minero y las luchas del pueblo aimara en el Norte Grande.” Colombia Internacional 98:3–30. https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint98.2019.01.
Ruiz Peyré, Fernando, and Felix M. Dorn. 2020. “Aprovechamiento del litio en el noreste argentino. Realidades, desafíos y perspectivas en un mundo globalizado.” Scripta Nova XXIV (632): 1–27.
Svampa, Maristella, and Emiliano Teran Mantovani. 2019. “En la frontera del cambio de época. Escenarios de una nueva fase del extractivismo en América Latina.” In ¿Cómo se sostiene la vida en América Latina? Feminismos y re-existencias en tiempos de oscuridad, edited by Karin Gabbert and Miriam Lang, 169–218. Quito: Abya Yala.
U.S. Geological Survey. 2021. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021. https://doi.org/10.3133/mcs2021.
Published
2021-10-12
How to Cite
Giglio, E. (2021). Extractivism and its socio-environmental impact in South America. Overview of the “lithium triangle”. América Crítica, 5(1), 47-53. https://doi.org/10.13125/americacritica/4926
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