Last Updated on April 12, 2025
In the world-wide dash for new tech, lithium mining has become a major threat to Indigenous rights and needs in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and the United States. Mexico can add its name to the list as well, thanks to Plan Sonora.
The Eight Traditional Yaqui Pueblos of Rio Yaqui have approached the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to stop an imminent threat to the Yaqui Nation’s water rights in Sonora, Mexico.
The Yaqui authority filed a report–along with the Water Protector Legal Collective and the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC)–warning that the Mexican government plans to extract lithium in the ecologically-sensitive Sonora Desert.
Don’t be fooled by its looks. The Sonoran Desert is an ecologically sensitive region
According to their statement, lithium mining in this region could contaminate or deplete the Yaqui Nation’s precious water resources for up to 300 years.
The extraction would take place under Plan Sonora, a massive development scheme that would also include large-scale solar power plants, natural gas pipelines and supporting infrastructure.
So far, the the Mexican government has failed to obtain the Yaqui Nation’s Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for the proposed mining development despite recognizing the Yaqui’s water rights in a 1940 Presidential Decree that guaranteed Yaqui land and water rights and reserved half (50%) of Rio Yaqui’s surface flow.
The “Plan de Justicia Yaqui” signed by Mexico’s President and the Yaqui Traditional Authorities in September 2021, further guaranteed their water rights.
A map showing the approximate locations of the Yaqui.
Dolores “Tulio” Gonzales Buitimea, spokesperson and former 2nd governor for the Traditional Yaqui Authorities of Vicam Pueblo, Primer Cabecera (“headquarters”) of the Eight Traditional Yaqui Pueblos of Rio Yaqui, Sonora Mexico comments,
“Our Yaqui Traditional Authorities have never been informed by the government of Mexico about the Plan Sonora and the dangers it might cause for our future generations. Supposedly the Yaqui Justice Plan that we signed with Mexico in 2021 was intended to restore at least a part of our recognized water rights. But the Mexican government never told us that at the same time they were also developing a plan for lithium mining in Sonora that will contaminate our main water source and our Traditional Authorities never gave our consent for it to go forward.”
Andrea Carmen, IITC’s Executive Director based in Tucson, Arizona and a member of the Yaqui Nation, comments,
“We found out about the Plan Sonora for massive lithium mining in the Sonora Desert of Mexico only when the governments of Mexico and the USA held a joint press conference to announce it as a “green energy” development project for “Climate Change mitigation” at the United Nations Climate Change talks (COP 28) in Dubai in November 2023. But it has apparently been in the planning stages for several years, with the Bacanora “exploratory” lithium mine established in 2010. Although this project will contaminate and deplete the ground water in the Sonora desert that feeds the Yaqui River and the Yaqui’s have recognized rights to that water, the Yaqui traditional authorities were never informed, nor have they given their Free, Prior and Informed Consent to this very detrimental plan that will impact them now and for generations to come”.
Natali Segovia, Esq., Executive Director of the Water Protector Legal Collective, comments,
“Lithium mining… is a false solution that depletes and contaminates vital sources of water that are central to the existence of Indigenous Peoples who are already on the frontlines of environmental devastation. If allowed to continue, Plan Sonora will impact the water of the Yaqui River and other waters that are vital to the Yaqui and other Indigenous Peoples in the Sonora region for generations. This submission to the CERD is an effort to put an urgent halt to that desecration.”
The joint submission asks CERD to call upon Mexico to fully respect its Nation-to-Nation agreements with the Yaqui Nation and halt the proposed mining activities until the Yaqui Traditional Authorities provide their FPIC.
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