"Bolivia’s economic crisis and mining put Indigenous people at risk", Dialogue Earth 30 April 2025

Until 2014, the state received USD 5.5 billion a year from the export of the hydrocarbon. Since then, production has fallen, with revenue down to USD 1.6 billion in 2024. This is due to various factors, most notably lower demand from the main markets, Brazil and Argentina, as well as a decline in reserves.

As a result of all this, since 2023 the country has been experiencing a shortage of dollars that has deepened to the point that it is no longer able to supply fuel because it cannot pay the companies selling it.

[...] Arce has also relaunched the country’s attempts to exploit its vast lithium reserves, to take advantage of the boom in demand for the metal for the global energy transition.

Extractive projects have long attracted criticisms from civil society and Indigenous groups [...] generated a sense of mistrust and rejection among Indigenous and peasant communities [...]

In November [2024], the Russian company Uranium One Group signed a contract to build a USD 970 million industrial lithium carbonate plant in Pastos Grandes. Another deal was signed with Hong Kong CBC – a Chinese consortium made up of battery giant CATL and its subsidiary Brunp, plus mining firm CMOC – which is to build two other plants in the Salar de Uyuni.

Both Indigenous leaders and researchers with whom Dialogue Earth spoke agree that the current economic crisis in Bolivia is generating division, and even violence, among the inhabitants of the Indigenous and peasant communities themselves.

The other major problem, not only for Indigenous peoples but also peasant communities, is the lack of access to information.

Since 2021, Indigenous coordinating body Contiocap has registered 272 forms of attacks or threats on defenders in Bolivia – ranging from prosecutions for defamation to intimidation.

Since 2021, Indigenous coordinating body Contiocap has registered 272 forms of attacks or threats on defenders in Bolivia – ranging from prosecutions for defamation to intimidation.

This year, local prosecutors issued warrants to apprehend these community members after the mining cooperative pursued legal action against them for their protests – something Contiocap describes as “arbitrary” and “without due process”.