{"id":50382327,"date":"2023-10-26T16:39:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T15:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogochino.net\/?post_type=photo_story&p=382327"},"modified":"2025-04-03T22:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T21:11:16","slug":"382327-latin-america-eyes-the-lithium-boom-but-opposition-endures","status":"publish","type":"photo_story","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/382327-latin-america-eyes-the-lithium-boom-but-opposition-endures\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin America eyes the lithium boom, but opposition endures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Andrea Calcina has lived all of her 58 years in the community of Calcha K, a group of adobe houses at 3,800 metres above sea level in the Bolivian Andes. Though everything seems to be drying up quickly here, Calcina points to a water well that is still providing for residents, if not like it used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere used to be more. With this water we wash, we sow, we water vegetables and quinoa,\u201d says Andrea, who lives in a community of 100 families, where recurring complaints that \u201cit doesn\u2019t rain like it used to\u201d are heard. Calcha K, in the southwestern department of Potos\u00ed, is one of 46 communities settled around the Uyuni and Pastos Grandes salt flats, two of the country\u2019s three major lithium reserves. The third, Salar de Coipasa, is found in Oruro, in the west of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"aerial<\/div>
The Puerto Chuvica community on the edge of the Uyuni salt flat. Local residents are concerned about potential lithium extraction\u2019s use of water, on which they depend for planting quinoa and raising llamas, their main economic activities. (Image: Ernst Udo Drawert \/ Di\u00e1logo Chino)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"person<\/div>
A farmer harvesting quinoa by hand after frost damaged most of her crops, in Aguaquiza, on the edge of Bolivia\u2019s Uyuni salt flat (Image: Ernst Udo Drawert \/ Di\u00e1logo Chino)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year, the Bolivian government has announced a series of agreements to build lithium industrial complexes in this area: a consortium<\/a> comprised of the Russian Uranium One Group and Chinese company CITIC Guoan will build plants at Pastos Grandes and Uyuni, while CATL<\/a>, also from China, will build another plant at Uyuni and in Coipasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public talks over the projects have been held periodically in the nearby areas, organised by state-owed lithium company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) \u2013 a partner in these agreements \u2013 as a way of seeking communities\u2019 approval. But some who have attended do not feel these could be classed as a true \u201cconsultation\u201d, a right established by the International Labour Organization (ILO<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these talks, officials have explained the benefits that Bolivia will obtain once it has an operational industry to produce lithium carbonate \u2013 the precursor to lithium-ion batteries, and the lithium product with the highest volume<\/a> of international trade. Aquilina Mamani, the former leader of a nearby community called Aguaquiza, says that the explanations at these talks have been technical, so very few people understand what is being explained. They also speak to the audience in Spanish, when many people only understand Quechua, their native language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n