‘Major environmental damage from lithium mining in Bolivia warned’ - 27 February 2025

... Contracts with Russian and Chinese companies for lithium mining in Bolivia are causing ‘great concern’ among environmentalists and citizens because of the damage they would cause to the environment due to excessive use of fresh water in operations and the lack of a waste plan.

Citizen leaders in the Andean region of Potosí, home to the 10,000-kilometre-long Uyuni salt flat, which is the area of the country's largest lithium reserves, are against the signed projects because they claim they will receive ‘crumbs’ of royalties but also that nearby communities will be the main ones affected by the environmental impact....

... ‘We are going to run out of water, nobody has consulted us at all and we are the most affected if these projects do not bear fruit, we are very worried,’ Alberto Pérez, president of the Potosi Civic Committee (Comcipo), told EFE.

For Héctor Córdova, an expert on energy issues at the Jubileo Foundation, the projects ‘do not have a solid basis in terms of environmental impact’, which shows that their implementation ‘could have a major impact on the communities, not only in terms of water but also in terms of pollution’.

Gonzalo Mondaca, a researcher on environmental issues at the Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia (Cedib) told EFE that ‘no contract’ signed has environmental impact studies, when this documentation should be part of the projects.