The strategic minerals debate is back-but starring some new rocks. One that has received much recent attention is lithium, which is used in cell phone batteries, as well as those under development for electric cars.

Turns out lithium isn't found in too many places. Around 50 percent of known reserves are in Bolivia, underneath some very dramatic and desolate salt flats. Worldfocus has a terrific news story that gives a glimpse of the place, the politics, and the battle over lithium extraction. Talk of an OPEC-like lithium cartel with China and Chile suggests that the politics at the international level will be just as contentious as the Bolivian domestic scene.



Friends over at the Center for New American Security are taking a fresh and systematic look at the strategic minerals question in their new Natural Security initiative. And we are hearing more and more about it from the advocacy community. For example, ENOUGH has ramped up its Come Clean 4 Congo campaign, which stresses the links between our cell phones, mineral extraction, and continuing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is reminiscent of the "blood diamonds" campaigns that led to the Kimberly Process.

The lithium story and the complex social, economic, and political disputes it could engender in Bolivia should flag for us an important consideration in the fight against climate change: trying to do right by climate change and energy security might trigger unforeseen conflicts. Greening our transportation sector with more powerful batteries is going to create a new set of winners and losers around the material inputs like lithium.

We need to be much more cognizant of these impacts as we move forward in addressing climate change and the unsustainable use of fossil fuels. The Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program will be tackling this specific dimension of the climate and security debates--the potential for conflict induced by climate mitigation efforts--in the months ahead.

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A virus called infectious salmon anemia is sweeping through Chile's fisheries, bringing attention to the condition of the country's third-largest export industry. On expansive salmon farms, fish are bred in crowded underwater pens. Fish poop and food pellets contaminate the water. As many as 1 million nonnative salmon escape each year, gobbling native species and traveling as far as Argentina. The fish are treated liberally with antibiotics, some of which are prohibited for use on animals in the U.S. -- but 29 percent of Chilean exports end up in American grocery stores. Salmon farming was welcomed as an economy-booster two decades ago, but in the wake of the virus, some in the industry are leaving in search of more pristine waters. Says one local fisherman, who says salmon farming has affected the quality of wild fish as well: "They bring illnesses and then leave us with the problems."

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Last week, Chile's government green-lighted a controversial mining project known as Pascua-Lama. If the name rings a bell, odds are a chain email has found its way to your inbox, an appeal to "friends who care about our earth."

Activists hoped Chile's new
president, Michelle Bachelet,
would stop the mine.

Photo: Queen/ WireImage.com.

The far-reaching cyber-alert describes a messy international situation. Indigenous farmers in the mountainous Andean border between Argentina and Chile, it says, are fighting an international company that plans to mine for gold beneath massive glaciers. Doing so, the letter continues, will contaminate two key rivers fed by the glaciers, ruin water systems for the area's impoverished people, and line the pockets of yet another foreign corporate invader. Oh, and the mining company has ties to the elder George Bush.

The message's rounds have been so extensive that hoax-busting websites investigated, and they now report what folks in South America have long known: Pascua-Lama is very real. The proposed open-pit mine would sit at an elevation of about 15,000 feet, yielding an estimated 18 million ounces of gold and 685 million ounces of silver over 20 years. The brainchild of Canada's Barrick Gold, it would be the world's first binational mine, and is slated to begin operations in 2009.

Though the email played loose with some facts, it was enough on target to prick Barrick into crafting a point-by-point rebuttal -- choosing to clarify, for instance, that former U.S. President Bush served in an "honorary capacity as an adviser to Barrick's international advisory board for two years in the mid-1990s" and "was neither a director nor officer of the company."

But other than causing a PR headache, the e-protest has failed to make real-space dents. Now that the government of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has given Pascua-Lama the OK -- rejecting 44 of 46 complaints filed by local opponents after Barrick's environmental impact study was initially approved in February -- the company simply awaits a nod from Argentina. That country, which would host one quarter of the mine, has left the decision in the hands of provincial officials who are said to favor the deal.

While opposition to Pascua-Lama continues in the form of lawsuits filed by indigenous-rights groups, last week's decision drained many green hopes. It was, however, a feather in the cap of Barrick's public-relations team.

For well over a year, Barrick has worked to break the ice with locals -- who it says wrongly believe the mine will hurt water supplies -- and to dispel the concerns of activists around the world.

It's just an "ice reservoir" -- what's
the big deal?

Photo: Eduardo Ubal, courtesy of OLCA.

Vince Borg, the company's vice president for corporate communications, declined to comment for Grist. However, he has worked through other media channels to downplay negative portrayals of the project -- stressing, for example, that glaciologists declared that the ice fields in question were not glaciers, but "ice reservoirs." Barrick has also worked to counter claims that the entire lode is located under ice. "This is simply not the case," says the company's rebuttal to the chain mail. "[Ninety-five percent] of the orebody is not under glaciers/ice fields. Protection of the remaining 5 percent is a key condition of the Chilean authorities' approval of the project."

Ana Lya Uriarte, director of the Chilean environmental commission that gave the approval, assured local media last week that the glaciers "would not be removed, transferred, or interfered with, much less destroyed." And Barrick Chile Director Jose Antonio Urrutia issued a statement saying that "as with all of its other operations around the world, in Chile Barrick will maintain its philosophy of responsible mining."

But those promises are worth a bucket of melting ice to Lucio Cuenca of the Chile-based Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts. "People don't have trust in the government, and the [government's announcement] is rhetorical, saying only that there will be no harm done to the glacier," Cuenca says. "But the deposits are under or near the glaciers, so it is very hard to believe they are not going to destroy [them]." Another major concern for activists is the plan to use a common mining technique involving cyanide, which they worry could contaminate local river systems.

For now, opposition groups are pinning their remaining hopes on Argentine authorities. But Raúl Montenegro, president of the Foundation for the Defense of the Environment in Cordoba, Argentina, says local mining officials "are conditioned by political power" and have already made up their minds. He says the technical capacity of Argentina's regulatory machine is lower than Chile's, and accuses Barrick of giving Argentine officials an inferior environmental impact study. "There were two reports filed, and two different levels of information," he says. "It was much deeper for [the] Chilean side."

The controversial lode lies about 400
miles north of Santiago.

What's more, Montenegro says, Argentina's federal mining agency is legally bound to involve itself in Barrick's request. He says leaving the decision to lower-level officials is a way of giving tacit approval while keeping hands clean in the capital, Buenos Aires. San Juan, the province in question, approved a nearby mine also run by Barrick in 2003 -- an ominous bellwether, Montenegro says.

Ana Folgar of Argentina's Mining Secretariat confirmed that the decision has been placed in the hands of officials in San Juan, and referred Grist to them for comment. Those officials did not respond to interview requests.

Understandably, Barrick has played up the economic benefits for locals, promising 5,500 new jobs during the construction stage and 1,660 when the mine is up and running. In addition, the company estimates that each of those jobs will lead to the indirect creation of 2.5 more jobs in the local economy. For any developing country, that kind of promise makes environmental decisions even more complicated.

Residents of Vallenar, Chile, protest
plans for the Pascua Lama mine.

Photo: Natanael Vivanco

Critics say Pascua-Lama is another example of how permissive national laws, lax environmental enforcement, cheap labor, and peaking ore prices are prompting a modern-day gold rush in South America, home to some of the world's most sensitive ecosystems. And as indigenous groups, farmers, and greens butt heads with multinational mining interests and royalty-hungry governments in Argentina, Chile, and Peru, the money machine keeps turning.

A Canada-based consultancy, Metals Economics Group, reports that in 2005, nearly a quarter of worldwide mining exploration budgets -- which totaled $4.89 billion -- found their way to Latin America, making the region "the most popular destination for exploration." Victor Di Meglio, director of the Argentine Mining Chamber, a trade group, told reporters last year that he expects investments of $4.5 billion in Argentina alone over the next five to six years. Chilean officials reportedly expect mining investments to total $10 billion by 2008, and Peru's prospects aren't far off that mark, according to reports.

Those figures give the shakes to activists who say unemployment, poverty, and corrupt governments spell an all but open road for potential environmental abuse. And they are bound and determined to keep Pascua-Lama from being added to the list.

According to Mines and Communities -- an international coalition created by three British-based organizations -- the Pascua-Lama fight isn't over. Legal actions are under way to nullify the environmental-impact approval granted by Chile in February -- and even to challenge the legitimacy of the treaty between Chile and Argentina that laid the foundations for this project in the first place.

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Two Americans take political heat for preserving Chilean wilderness

Douglas Tompkins and his wife Kristine McDivitt own more than 2,000 square miles of Patagonian wilderness, and they're determined to preserve it -- even if some Chileans don't appreciate the conservationist gesture. Their Pumalín Park holding encompasses huge swaths of virgin forest, free-flowing streams, and scenic coastlines -- territory that timber, agricultural, and energy industries covet. Tompkins, founder of The North Face and Esprit clothing companies, says he hopes to turn his land into national parks, but many Chileans see him as an imperialistic land-grabber. He figures he just has to sweat it out politically while Chile -- notable for a dynamic, American-style, free-market economy unusual in South America -- comes around to Western capitalism's philanthropic heritage as well. Chile's national forests director, Carlos Weber, is one who appreciates Tompkins' efforts; he predicts that in 30 years, "after people's thinking has matured and they see results, no one will be against him."

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As quality of life improves, Chileans get eco-active

Last Saturday, thousands of Chileans marched in 14 cities to celebrate two environmental victories. Green activists helped to shut down the Valdivia wood-pulp facility (owned by the country's biggest industrial firm, Copec) after pollution from the plant killed hundreds of black-necked swans in a nearby wetland; the plant owners are now looking for a safe water-treatment system. Next, greens pressured the government to demand changes to the Pascua Lama mining project, proposed by Canada's Barrick Gold; the original plan involved moving parts of two glaciers. Several factors contribute to growing eco-consciousness in Chile, including the country's dropping poverty rates, zippy economic growth, and the need to meet strict European environmental standards in order to export goods there. Says activist Norma Tapia, who marched in Santiago on Saturday, "We're waking up. We were asleep. All of Chile was woken up by the swans and now the Pascua Lama project."

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Raging Cyclists push for bike-friendly reforms in Santiago

Inspired by Critical Mass, the cycling activist group formed in San Francisco in 1992, the Furiosos Ciclistas -- or Raging Cyclists -- of Santiago, Chile, are inspiring real reform in that polluted city. The group is one of more than 200 inspired by Critical Mass in cities across the world. Santiago is one of the most polluted cities in the world, with frequent air-quality alerts, but bike usage is on the rise: Some 5 percent of residents now use bikes as their primary means of transport. Founded in 1996 and spread mostly by word of mouth and word of mouse, the group now boasts more than 3,000 participants. Their constant pressure for "ciclovias," or bike paths, is paying off, with plans in the works for a $500,000 path down Santiago's central avenue. Says Raging Cyclist Jesus Montealegre, "This is changing the way cycling is seen, from being a lower-class necessity to a classless means of transportation and recreation."

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Exotic South American forest set aside as wilderness by ... bankers?

When New York investment banking and management firm Goldman Sachs acquired a logging operation in Tierra del Fuego, on an island off the southernmost tip of Chile, it did something unusual: Rather than "seek to maximize its economic value, which is what we would have done if this were a shopping mall or an apartment building," says the firm's Larry Linden, "we decided to do what we thought was the right thing" -- dedicate the land, more than 1,000 square miles, as a wilderness reserve. The U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society will administer the reserve, but to avoid the PR and political difficulties that have faced other foreign green do-gooders in Chile and Argentina, WCS will work in conjunction with an advisory council to be composed largely of Chileans. Tierra del Fuego has long fascinated naturalists: It is one of the southernmost temperate forests in the world and home to an unusual variety of plants and birds -- not to mention the guanaco, a relative of the camel that wards off attackers by spitting on them.

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Environmentalists in Chile have reason to be muy feliz of late. First, the government agreed to turn a vast tract of land owned by U.S. multimillionaire Doug Tompkins into a public nature reserve. Now, investment bank Goldman Sachs has announced that it will create another such reserve in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. Goldman Sachs obtained the land -- 680,000 acres of it -- by purchasing defaulted bonds from U.S. forestry company Trillium Corporation, which had planned to log the area for wood chips and other products, much to the dismay of environmentalists. "We weighed our options and decided that protecting this ecological jewel was the socially responsible thing to do," said company Media Relations Director Peter Rose. The land is forested with rare lenga wood, found only in southern Chile and Argentina. Goldman Sachs plans to set up a Chilean foundation and select an environmental group to manage the reserve by the end of next year.

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Some 738,000 acres of pristine rainforest in southern Chile will get official billing as a nature sanctuary today, thanks to a deal between U.S. tycoon Doug Tompkins and the Chilean government. Tompkins, cofounder of the sportswear company Esprit, paid more than $30 million for the land and spent many years trying to get it officially protected. Now that the government has agreed to do so, control of the area, dubbed Parque Pumalin, will be handed off to a seven-member Chilean directorate. Tompkins created a huge controversy when he first purchased the land, and some Chileans still bristle at the notion of a wealthy outsider buying up a sizable chunk of their country. In all, Tompkins has created 11 wilderness parks encompassing almost 2 million acres in Chile and Argentina. Most other rich foreigners operating in the region are inclined toward less noble pursuits: building resorts, drilling for oil, and mining for gold.

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Melting of South American Glaciers Leads to Sea-Level Rise

Glaciers in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina and Chile are melting so fast that they are leading to a tiny but notable rise in sea level, U.S. scientists report in the latest issue of the journal Science. The glaciers are melting twice as quickly as they were in 1975, an increase that the researchers attribute to global warming. Between 1995 and 2000, enough ice melted from the Patagonian glaciers to boost sea levels by 0.1 millimeters per year -- okay, not enough to drown anyone's beach home, but, combined with increasing melt from other glaciers around the world, nothing to sneeze at, either. Patagonia's so-called "calving" glaciers are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures. "Calving glaciers are more sensitive to climate change once pushed out of equilibrium, and make this region the fastest area of glacial retreat on Earth," said lead researcher Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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Indigenous Activists Give Up Fight Over Chilean Dam

After a six-year protest, four elderly Pehuenche women have agreed to end their opposition to a $570 million hydroelectric dam to be built on their ancestral land in Southern Chile. After lengthy negotiations with the Chilean government and Endesa, the Spanish-owned power company building the dam, the women agreed to accept $1.2 million and 761 acres of land in exchange for ending the protest. The company and the government say the 540-megawatt dam is crucial to meeting Chile's energy needs; environmental and indigenous activists say it will flood sacred land, destroy endangered wildlife and burial sites, and harm the Pehuenche way of life. The leader of the four women, Berta Quintreman, told Chilean President Ricardo Lagos that "her heart ached" upon signing the agreement.

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U.S. Fails to Inspect Farmed Fish Imports for Dangerous Chemicals

If the orange foam caused by Canadian aquaculture isn't enough to scare you away from farmed fish, how about the presence of malachite green, a fabric dye suspected to cause cancer, in Chilean farmed salmon? This year, European countries seized dozens of tons of farmed salmon from Chile that were found to have been contaminated with malachite green, which was banned from the U.S. in 1991 but is still used in some countries as a cheap fungicide. For its part, the U.S. imports thousands of tons of Chilean salmon each year, and huge quantities of seafood from other nations, without testing for malachite green or other potentially dangerous chemicals used in foreign fish farms. Aquaculture took off during "a cowboy era of globalization and free market, and that has helped it escape regulation," said Mike Skladany of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "The stuff has just come flooding in without any inspection to speak of."

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The city of Santiago, Chile, located in the shadow of the snow-capped Andes Mountains, is blessed with one of the most breathtaking natural surroundings of any urban area on Earth. But from May to September, you wouldn't know it; heavy smog obscures the Andes entirely and lends the word "breathtaking" a different meaning. A poll of Latin American business travelers by the magazine America Economia found that Santiago's smog was the biggest obstacle to would-be foreign investors, offsetting its stable economy and comparatively tranquil political situation. Although Mexico City and Sao Paulo have as bad or worse pollution problems, the perception in the business community is that Santiago is the smoggiest city in the region.

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