For more than 15 years, members of Atacama and Kolla Indigenous communities near Argentina’s abundant lithium reserves say, their rights to a healthy environment and self-determination have been ignored.

Located in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc saltwater basin in northwestern Argentina, arguments over proper consultation started cropping up as mining companies expressed an interest in exploring the region for rich lithium reserves, of which the country has plenty. Among them was Lition Energy, which obtained a permit to explore for the mineral at its Agonic Mine in 2023 after consulting with only one of the two communities directly impacted, according to local sources.

Lition Energy told Mongabay via email that “the Agonic Mine has all the required legal permits; otherwise, we would not have been able to carry out our exploration work.” According to the company’s website, it aims to establish a relationship of mutual trust with communities and focuses on community strengthening, local development, with local employment and suppliers, entrepreneurship development, and education in communities near their projects.

Many of the wider region’s 33 Indigenous communities are actively opposed to mining. Straddling the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, communities in the area depend on the land and its resources for cattle rearing, subsistence agriculture, traditional salt extraction and tourism. Before the Agonic Mine came into the picture, some communities and the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN in Spanish) filed an environmental protection lawsuit against the provincial and national governments, seeking the suspension of all lithium and borate mining exploration and exploitation in Salinas Grandes salt flat. Some of their main concerns include the potential impact on water sources if lithium mining expands and a lack of transparency.

“Since lithium mining began to advance in the Salinas territory, we have seen progressive, systematic violations of rights, especially those of Indigenous peoples,” María Laura Castillo Díaz, coordinator of FARN’s High-Andean Program, told Mongabay. “The free, prior and informed consultation process they enjoy, guaranteed by international treaties, is not being followed. There is no access to public information, and spaces for participation are not assured.”

No sources, including Mongabay, have received the project’s environmental impact study by the time of this publication.

However, after facing numerous difficulties in obtaining public information about the mining companies that had applied for lithium exploration permits, FARN eventually discovered one entity behind Lition Energy. After reviewing financial documents, Mongabay was also able to confirm that it was Pan American Energy (PAE), a large oil and gas company.

The convert

Since 1997, PAE has been a leader in oil and gas exploration, production, refining and marketing in Argentina. It is the second-largest oil and gas producer in the country and has oil and gas production blocks in Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay and Paraguay. But in recent years, the company has begun investing in lithium mining.

Four months later, a new company called Lithos Desarrollos Energéticos S.A., also known as Lition Energy, appeared in the Official Gazette of the Nation. The official notice said the firm planned to explore and exploit lithium resources in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin in the province of Jujuy through a private initiative project named the Jujuy Energy and Mining State Company (JEMSE).

According to official corporate filings, PAE owns 20.7 million of Lition Energy’s 23 million available shares, which is equivalent to 90% of the company.

In November 2022, JEMSE launched a public tender for the lithium exploration and feasibility study of about 11,000 hectares (more than 27,000 acres) in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basins. The bidding opened at $55,000, and although there has not yet been an official statement declaring the winner, as the process was a private initiative model, Lition Energy had preferential rights to the bid, meaning the outcome was virtually predetermined, according to civil society sources. This tender structure allowed the company to match or top any other company’s bids.

PAE’s 2024 Institutional Brochure states that Lition Energy has three exploration projects: the Agonic Mine in the southern portion of Salinas Grandes in the Jujuy province and the Hombre Muerto Oeste and Hombre Muerto Sur projects in the Catamarca province.

Residents living near the Agonic Mine told Mongabay that the company has completed its on-site exploration work and has moved on to the next phase, which involves in-depth studies. They said they fear exploration will turn into exploitation, which could strain water sources.

“[Lithium projects] are the most serious thing that’s happening in the lives of communities, not just in the lives of human beings, but also in all aspects of livestock and agriculture,” Clemente Flores, the president of the El Angosto Indigenous community, told Mongabay. “There are already symptoms, predictions and evidence that the water level in the basin has dropped. We have a well where we measure [water levels] and we know it’s going down.”

A few weeks later, over a phone call, Flores expressed his concerns about the cultural impacts of the expansion of lithium exploitation in the basin: “The mentality towards livestock production has changed. Ten years ago, the number of cattle was significantly higher than it is today. Now, young people are more dedicated to working for a company, for the state, or a specific job where they receive a salary.”

Most of them now work for lithium mining companies, he said.

Disputes over consultation

Local sources informed Mongabay that PAE never conducted a proper consultation for the Agonic Mine, despite plans to explore for lithium within the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Kolla and Atacama peoples.

Alicia del Rosario Chalabe, a lawyer representing the affected communities, told Mongabay that the company only consulted with the Indigenous Lipan community, not the community of El Angosto, which is also within the mine’s area of direct impact.

“With Pan American, we, the communities of Salinas Grandes, have not had any contact,” Flores said.

Chalabe said the company only approached Lipan because it was the only community identified by the Secretariat of Indigenous Peoples in Argentina (INAI), the entity responsible for determining which communities are impacted by a project. However, a technical report carried out by Ubatec, a working group from the University of Buenos Aires, found that 80% of the mine’s exploration area is located within the boundaries of the El Angosto community.

Although Chalabe and FARN filed an injunction against the approval of the mine’s impact study, the court rejected it two months ago and stated that the consultation process carried out by the company was legally valid, allowing it to continue exploration.

“All the free, prior, and informed consultation processes were carried out,” José G. Gómez, the secretariat of Mining and Hydrocarbons for the province of Jujuy, told Mongabay over email. “Since these are exploration projects, the relevant IIA [impact study] technically defined the areas of direct and indirect impact of the project, and therefore the communities, municipalities, and individual surface owners who were part of the evaluation process and are subsequently part of the control process.”

Chalabe and FARN said they have since appealed this ruling.

Even in the case where the Lipan community was consulted, local sources told Mongabay that PAE carried out an irregular consultation. Anastasia Castillo, a member of the Lipan community, said an assembly was held, but very few people were invited.

“We weren’t consulted as a whole community, only half. Everyone who agreed [with the project] signed.”

Chalabe told Mongabay that the agreement was signed in a special general meeting, which is a meeting convened to discuss specific and urgent matters, without all members of the Lipan community being present. “Some people work in the city, which is a three-hour drive away, and not everyone has the means to commute every day,” María said. “The vast majority of community members couldn’t make it.”

According to Chalabe, there were only 20 people present in a community comprising 45 families. “But what did Pan American Energy do? They held a vote and got the president and a few other people to sign, and with that authorization, they went to the province of Jujuy and requested a lithium exploration permit.”

The president of the Lipan aboriginal community, Adriana Castillo, did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment.

El Angosto’s Flores said the manner in which the company obtained approval for the project violated ILO Convention 169, an international treaty focused on the rights of Indigenous and tribal peoples, and the Kachi Yupi, an agreement developed by all 38 communities of the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin which lays out how free, prior and informed consultation should be carried out in their communities.

When questioned about irregularities in the consultation process, Gómez told Mongabay, “this is an opinion, and I respect it, but I have nothing to say. The processes count and are recorded in the corresponding file.”

Mongabay contacted Pan American Energy several times for a comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Lack of available data

A significant concern among organizations, researchers and community members interviewed for this piece is the potential impact the project may have on the area’s water supply if the company receives an extraction permit, as lithium mining requires large volumes of water.

In 2024, Argentina’s Salar del Hombre regional court suspended the issuance of new lithium mining permits due to concerns about water sources, allowing for a comprehensive environmental impact study to be completed. Some reports also stated that the withdrawal of brine water during a common extraction process can cause freshwater to flow into the salt flats, resulting in the salinization of freshwater and the depletion of nearby surface and groundwater supplies.

Flores stated that the water level in the basin has already decreased as a result of exploration activities by other mining companies. Mongabay was unable to verify this information due to the lack of publicly available data. Argentina’s National Hydrological Observatory (INA in Spanish) and two agents from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA in Spanish) told Mongabay they do not have any data for the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin, but one of the INTA agents said mining companies near these sites have data that the government institutes do not have access to.

“[Argentina] does not have a solid and up-to-date baseline,” said María. “We have no information about what that basin is like, the water connectivity underneath, how much water there is, how climate projections impact the availability or quality of that water.”

In 2023, following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the national government and provinces of Jujuy and Salta must provide comprehensive information about mining in the basin, an interprovincial agreement was signed to conduct a baseline study with the assistance of the World Bank. However, the bank withdrew in February 2025 after several communities sent a letter requesting that the desk review be put on hold, a spokesperson for the World Bank told Mongabay.

The letter to the bank said the commission had been created without consulting or involving the Indigenous communities in the decision-making process.

Environmental impacts

The Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin is home to two globally threatened flamingo species, the Andean flamingo (Phoenicoparrus andinus) and James’s flamingo (Phoenicoparrus jamesi), which mostly feed on algae and microscopic diatoms obtained by filtering the water from salt flats using their beaks. Although mining in the basin has not yet begun, locals fear similar impacts to those faced by others living near other salt flats.

Studies have shown a decline in the number of flamingo nests, birds and chicks in areas near lithium projects. In the Salar de Atacama in Chile, specifically in the area affected by lithium mining, researchers found a 10-12% decline in the region’s flamingo population over the last 11 years.

Other species that depend on the basin are the Andean avocet (Recurvirostra andina) and the Wilson’s phalarope (Phalaropus tricolor).

“Some avocets are permanently in the area and are therefore very important as indicators,” Román Baigún, the coordinator of the Saving High Andean Wetlands for People and Nature program at Wetlands International LAC nonprofit, told Mongabay. “And the phalaropes, for example, which come from the northern hemisphere, from the United States and Canada, concentrate very heavily [in Salinas Grandes] during the non-breeding season for these species.”

According to Enrique Javier Derlindati, a biologist at the National University of Salta, Argentina, the main risk is habitat loss, such as “the loss of these surface wetlands above the salt flats due to poor management or some other issue that could change the ecological conditions of the system, mainly the pH and conductivity of the water, which is related to the presence of microbial mats, or microscopic organisms that are the food base of these two species, because flamingos filter microorganisms.”

Baigún told Mongabay that the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin is endorheic, which means the water does not drain to the sea. If water is extracted from one part of the basin, he said, the entire basin’s water levels decrease, which can impact biodiversity and the pastures that communities depend on.

Research has also shown that salt marshes absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. “If it degrades, not only is the carbon dioxide stored there emitted, but wetlands are also natural reservoirs of methane, another greenhouse gas,” María said. Lithium extraction can damage these important carbon sinks and threaten a natural process that is crucial to mitigating climate change.

“Here, communities are always discussing this paradox: They are seeking an alleged climate solution with lithium but destroying an ecosystem that naturally sequesters carbon dioxide,” she said.

Banner image: Vilma de Callata, 45, draws water for her animals in Tusaquillas, Jujuy Province, Argentina, Sunday, April 23, 2023. Her native Kolla people have spent centuries climbing deep into the mountains of northern Argentina in search of a simple substance: Fresh drinking water. Image by Photo/Rodrigo Abd.

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Citations

Blair, J.J.A., Balcázar, R.M., Barandiarán, J., & Maxwell, A. Exhausted: How we can stop lithium mining from depleting water resources, draining wetlands, and harming communities in South America. Recovered from: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/exhausted-lithium-mining-south-america-report.pdf

Dowling, C., & Otero, G. (2025). Mirages or miracles? Lithium extraction and the just energy transition. Energy Research & Social Science, 119: 103862. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2024.103862

Fernández, L., & Ruiz, N.O. (2023). Boom de litio y territorios de Sacrificio en Argentina. Recovered from: https://salares.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230801_ALTERNATIVA-OPSAL-2_V2-1.pdf

Gutiérrez, J., Moore, J.N., Patrick Donnelly, J., Dorador, C., Navedo, J., & Senner, N.R. (2022). Climate change and lithium mining influence flamingo abundance in the Lithium Triangle. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289(1970). doi:10.1098/rspb.2021.2388

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