186 Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks
protocols, as well as how protocols can contribute to activism of other types,
which may also help communities to achieve their aims.
The Kachi Yupi/Tracks in the Salt community protocol was drafted by 33
communities from the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc area: a shared
watershed that straddles the two provinces of Salta and Jujuy in the northeast of
Argentina. It was published in December 2015. To better interpret the protocol,
it is useful to first place it against the backdrop of the political and legal contexts surrounding lithium mining and environmental regulation in Argentina.
Lithium mining has been underway since 1997 in the country, but mining
increased markedly from around 2010. The reasons for this are rooted in the
increase in global demand and interest in the mineral that have accompanied
the global push to move away from a fossil fuel-based global economy. Lithium,
indeed, is the key component of li-ion batteries. These are used in key modern
technologies like laptop computers and mobile devices and, crucially, in electric
cars. Lithium thus plays a key role in current visions of the path away from fossil
fuels. It is a metal that is technically challenging to extract, however, and one of
the most important accessible sources is the “lithium triangle”, a cluster of salt
flats located high in the Andes where the borders of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile
meet. Argentina is the only of these three countries in which lithium extraction can be freely licenced and has received much attention from international
investors, seen, in turn, as opportunities for development by local authorities.
Together, these reasons explain Argentina’s push to grow its lithium sector and
why the country became the fastest growing provider of lithium in 2016, when
its global share in the market grew from 11% to 16%. Both before and after this
increase, the government in Argentina actively pursued lithium mining projects
and sought to boost the sector, creating public companies for battery production,
and axing federal taxes on mineral exports, for example (see Marchegiani et al.,
2018 for a full discussion).
The push for the “white gold” of lithium translated into the granting of
exploratory and mining permits in the Argentinian area of the triangle, including the Salinas Grandes and Guayatayoc area discussed here. These permits raised
questions of how local communities could effectively make their voices and concerns heard in procedures surrounding the granting of eventual permits. Thus,
the legal situation surrounding mining permits and environmental impacts is
another necessary piece of the puzzle for a more complete interpretation of the
local community actions undertaken in this vein.
Argentina is a federal state and as such has distributed power between the
central state and its autonomous provinces. The federal state retains all powers
not specifically delegated in the provinces. Moreover, with the 1994 Constitutional reform, the country conferred supremacy to international human rights
within its domestic legal framework. As such, Argentina has ratified international instruments relevant to the inclusion of local points of view in mining permit decisions. It ratified ILO Convention 169,
2 which recognizes indigenous and
tribal peoples’ right to participate in the use, management and conservation of
protocols, as well as how protocols can contribute to activism of other types,
which may also help communities to achieve their aims.
The Kachi Yupi/Tracks in the Salt community protocol was drafted by 33
communities from the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc area: a shared
watershed that straddles the two provinces of Salta and Jujuy in the northeast of
Argentina. It was published in December 2015. To better interpret the protocol,
it is useful to first place it against the backdrop of the political and legal contexts surrounding lithium mining and environmental regulation in Argentina.
Lithium mining has been underway since 1997 in the country, but mining
increased markedly from around 2010. The reasons for this are rooted in the
increase in global demand and interest in the mineral that have accompanied
the global push to move away from a fossil fuel-based global economy. Lithium,
indeed, is the key component of li-ion batteries. These are used in key modern
technologies like laptop computers and mobile devices and, crucially, in electric
cars. Lithium thus plays a key role in current visions of the path away from fossil
fuels. It is a metal that is technically challenging to extract, however, and one of
the most important accessible sources is the “lithium triangle”, a cluster of salt
flats located high in the Andes where the borders of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile
meet. Argentina is the only of these three countries in which lithium extraction can be freely licenced and has received much attention from international
investors, seen, in turn, as opportunities for development by local authorities.
Together, these reasons explain Argentina’s push to grow its lithium sector and
why the country became the fastest growing provider of lithium in 2016, when
its global share in the market grew from 11% to 16%. Both before and after this
increase, the government in Argentina actively pursued lithium mining projects
and sought to boost the sector, creating public companies for battery production,
and axing federal taxes on mineral exports, for example (see Marchegiani et al.,
2018 for a full discussion).
The push for the “white gold” of lithium translated into the granting of
exploratory and mining permits in the Argentinian area of the triangle, including the Salinas Grandes and Guayatayoc area discussed here. These permits raised
questions of how local communities could effectively make their voices and concerns heard in procedures surrounding the granting of eventual permits. Thus,
the legal situation surrounding mining permits and environmental impacts is
another necessary piece of the puzzle for a more complete interpretation of the
local community actions undertaken in this vein.
Argentina is a federal state and as such has distributed power between the
central state and its autonomous provinces. The federal state retains all powers
not specifically delegated in the provinces. Moreover, with the 1994 Constitutional reform, the country conferred supremacy to international human rights
within its domestic legal framework. As such, Argentina has ratified international instruments relevant to the inclusion of local points of view in mining permit decisions. It ratified ILO Convention 169,
2 which recognizes indigenous and
tribal peoples’ right to participate in the use, management and conservation of