Last Updated on June 1, 2026
Thirty lithium-hungry mining companies, including NovaAndino Litio formerly known as SQM and CODELCO, continue to push for permits in northern Argentina and Chile that violate the Kolla and Atacameño’s rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent while nations around the world race to reach Net-Zero by 2050.
As climate change progresses, governments globally are setting goals to be carbon-neutral by 2050. While seemingly positive, there’s a hidden cost to this green transition. The mineral required for green energy technologies, such as solar panels, wind mills, and electric cars, is lithium. In recent years, the demand for lithium has grown exponentially, and is predicted to increase eighteenfold by 2030 and sixtyfold by 2050. Meeting this demand for lithium cannot come at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty and human rights. Sustainable energy cannot be built on a foundation of unsustainable extractivism.
Lithium is mined through expansive salt flats which are highly abundant on the lands of the Kolla and Atacameño in the Salinas Grandes region of Argentina and the Salar de Atacama region of Chile. Various other Indigenous communities have also occupied these territories for over 13,000 years, developing productive agricultural systems despite the high altitudes.
As Indigenous people in so-called Argentina, the Kolla and Atacameño have recognized rights to a healthy environment where the minimum standards for environmental protection are determined by the Federal government. Under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), they have rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). These rights, however, have frequently been bypassed.
To counter the violent dispossession mining companies enact against them, the Kolla developed the Kachi Yupi Community Protocol in 2015. Kachi Yupi means “salt footprints”, which the communities selected because “A footprint represents a path to follow […] so this document, then, hopes to serve […] as a community conduit to channel our rights to participation, consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent. In this way, we continue our ancestors’ legacy of defending the lands and territories to which we are intimately connected”.
The Kachi Yupi Community Protocol requires that all companies attempting to obtain a mining permit accept that consent is not guaranteed after consultation occurs. The companies must also engage in meetings occurring between the communities of the basin, host community information sessions, and provide concrete information on what their project entails in an accessible format, well in advance to the project’s start date.
While the Kachi Yupi Community Protocol was initially highly regarded by the government, almost becoming legally recognized and compulsory, companies grew impatient and the government folded to their demands.
In response, the Kolla adapted their efforts in 2019, shifting towards peaceful protesting using a blockade approach. When the Jujuy provincial governor ordered police to remove the blockade which resulted in police violence, they ultimately decided that they would oppose all mining on their territory, rather than attempt to work with companies who continually proceeded without their free, prior, and informed consent.
In January of 2024, a blockade was implemented by 18 Atacameño communities, preventing access to the Atacama Salt Flat, as a response to CODELCO and SQM’s lack of consultation regarding a pre-agreement they were developing to increase production at the mine. This successful blockade was taken down on the fifth day after an agreement was reached.
The Kolla and Atacameño struggle is one that resembles a commonly observed pattern in settler colonial states where extractivist entities seek to exploit Indigenous lands. In so-called Canada a resemblant battle is occurring for the Gitxsan and Gitanyow peoples, who hold rights and title to their lands. They are actively fighting against a Liquified Natural Gas pipeline proposed on their territories. Similar to the risks lithium extraction poses on Kolla and Atacameño territories, this pipeline, should a leak occur, would threaten the health of the water that sustains them.
The impact of lithium extraction extends beyond the violation of rights and into socio-ecological harm. There are two ways to extract lithium from brines: evaporation processes (EP) and direct lithium extraction (DLE). EP has a higher surface footprint, resulting in 85-95% of water contained within the brines evaporating, whereas DLE technologies require more fresh water. Both processes significantly alter the hydrology of a region where only a few millimeters of rain falls per year, and that amount is only lessening as climate change progresses.
In 2021, SQM was authorized to extract 1500-1700 litres per second of brine and 240 litres per second of freshwater. The excessive water consumption lithium mining requires has impacted the cultivation of quinoa and maize, as well as the traditional herding of llamas, huanacos, and vicuñas. During dry months, some Kolla communities have to walk kilometers in hopes that their livestock can drink from a small plastic container whose supply comes from a hose running high into the mountains.
While lithium mining reduces water abundance, it also affects the local abundance of non-human species, such as flamingos. In the Salar de Atacama region, lithium mines have been shown to cause a decline in two endemic species of flamingos (Andean and James’). The relationship between the decline in local flamingos was found to be directly and strongly correlated with lithium mining, meaning not caused by other factors. This association is likely due to increases in noise and vehicular traffic from industrial activity, as well as a reduction in surface water.
Despite the wellbeing of the Kolla and Atacameño being under threat from lithium mining, both peoples have demonstrated immense resilience and perseverance. The Kolla developed the Kachi Yupi Community Protocol and shifted to land defense when it was no longer respected, and the Atacameño gathered together to fight for their right to FPIC when it was left out of an important business proposition. Through their action, the Kolla and Atacameño have worked to protect their land and their ways of being.
As the race for lithium continues on to fuel the (much-needed) Net-Zero movement, the extraction methods cannot compromise human rights and degrade the environment further. Instead, we as lithium-consumers must demand that it come from land where FPIC has been provided. It is the responsibility of those of us in countries where Net-Zero is being popularized to practice intercontinental solidarity with the Kolla and Atacameño. We can and must demand better.
*This article is written by a white settler located on the unceded territoires of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ.
**NovaAndino Litio reached out with clarifications. The article has been edited in accordance with those clarifications.
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