"In Argentina, lithium exploration proceeds amid community disputes", 10 September 2025

...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.

...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”...

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...

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

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...

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...

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