Chile: indigenous win a round in lithium struggle

[Judi Lynn]

Submitted by WW4 Report on Sun, 12/29/2019 - 19:57Southern Cone autonomy Chile control of water mining
First Environmental Tribunal in the Chile's northern city of Antofagasta on Dec. 26 ruled in favor of indigenous communities that had brought suit against Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM), the world's second-largest miner of lithium. The court found SQM's compliance plan for water preservation submitted to Chile's Environment Superintendency (SMA) was "insufficient," citing the "particular fragility" of the lithium-rich but extremely arid salt-flats where the company hopes to expand operations, the Salar de Atacama. Under the ruling, SQM must submit a new compliance plan, pay multi-million fines to the SMA for being out of compliance, or suspend operations. "We must protect sensitive ecosystems even more when they constitute the ancestral habitat of our native peoples whom the State of Chile is obliged to protect," the court's chief justice, Mauricio Oviedo, said in a statement. The case was brought by the local Council of Atacameño Pueblos, representing the impacted indigenous communities of Peine and Camar.

https://countervortex.org/node/16577









Chile's salt flats, so similar to the same salt flats in Bolivia, which the coup government intends to take and privatize for lithium profits, as well.

More images of the salt flats, Salar de Atacama:

https://tinyurl.com/schgx5w

[mopinko]

1. recycle the fucking batteries.

[2naSalit]

2. +1

[abqtommy]

3. There are many uses for lithium besides the manufacture of batteries* but that doesn't change

the need for sustainable and environmentally safe mining practices.

* https://wanttoknowit.com/uses-of-lithium/