Environmental issues: gold mining in the Amazon and lithium in Argentina

The Brazilian special forces have launched an offensive against criminals destroying the Amazon, under the codename “Operation Waki.” The goal of this operation is to eliminate more than 100 illegal gold mining sites in and around the Javari Valley, which is an indigenous area near Brazil’s borders with Colombia and Peru. Due to record-high gold prices, illegal miners have started moving towards Javari, which is home to the world’s highest concentration of isolated tribes. This poses a risk of violence and disease that could devastate these communities and some of the most valuable tropical forests on Earth.

In Argentina, mining companies that extract lithium, a metal essential for the green transition, have been accused of employing a colonialist “divide and conquer” approach. Lithium is found, for example, under the Salinas Grandes salt flats, where locals have been collecting salt for years. The Salinas Grandes is Argentina’s largest salt flat and a biodiverse ecosystem located in the lithium mining triangle bordered by Chile and Bolivia. For the past 14 years, 33 indigenous communities in the Atacama and Kolla regions have been united in their fight to stop the mining operations, as they fear the destruction of local water resources and the need to abandon their lands. More than 30 global mining conglomerates are entering the region, driven by the encouragement of Argentine President Javier Milei, and local communities are increasingly divided by job and investment offers.