Lithium mining leaves severe impacts in Chile, but new methods exist: Report

A new report on the impact of lithium mining in South America’s lithium triangle has found that methods used by companies in the rush to extract the mineral in Chile’s Salar de Atacama has led to an “irreversible” and “unrecoverable” loss of water. Nearby Indigenous Colla peoples, whose land has not yet been exploited, told Mongabay that without the implementation of more sustainable mining methods, they will likely face the same problems neighboring communities have experienced over the last four decades, such as a loss of vegetation cover and the disappearance of lagoons. Since the 1980s, lithium mining has been conducted in Salar de Atacama, a salt flat in Chile’s Antofagasta region, located within the traditional territory of the Lickanantay (Atacameño) Indigenous peoples. The report w