The flock of black vultures circling slowly over the Sierra de la Mosca leaves an eerie impression. However, it makes the heart of nature lovers beat faster, because it is a sign of a steadily growing population of the endangered bird species. At the end of January, the Extremadura Zoological Society handed over its report on the latest bird sightings to the regional government. In addition to the black vultures, eagle owls, black storks and imperial eagles have also made their home in the green oasis outside the city of Cáceres in southwestern Spain. For zoologists, sufficient reasons to declare the small range of hills a protected area.
But instead of being preserved, a huge crater could soon open up there. Europe’s second-largest lithium deposit is said to be located underground in the heart of the nature reserve. A joint venture called Tecnología Extremeña del Litio now wants to mine the coveted metal in an open-pit mine and process it on site into lithium hydroxide suitable for batteries. Behind the unwieldy name are the Australian company Infinity Lithium and the Spanish construction group Sacyr, which has a stake in the project through its mining subsidiary Valoriza Minería.
The first residential areas begin less than a kilometer away from the planned mining site. The place of pilgrimage for Cáceres’ patron saint, La Virgen de la Montaña, is only 500 meters away. And it is less than three kilometers to the old town, which is listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
“I don’t know of any mine in the world that is located so close to a city of 100,000 people,” says Santiago Márquez. Together with Montaña Chaves, the 57-year-old teacher is involved in the citizens platform Salvemos la Montaña (Let’s Save the Mountain), which has about eighty active members and around 9,000 supporters. The two are among the driving forces behind the initiative, which has been organizing information events and rallies since it was founded in summer 2017.
“What happens after 25 years, when everything will be exploited and the land will no longer be usable?” asks Márquez. “Who guarantees us that the operation will really last at least 25 years and not close down because of a drop in prices, as with the nickel mine in Aguablanca?” In 2016, Rio Narcea Recursos, also a subsidiary of construction giant Sacyr, prematurely closed a nickel mine located 200 kilometers south of Cáceres. The management justified the closure with falling nickel prices, leaving behind a 300-meter-deep hole in the landscape, a lake of toxic sludge, a tailings pile and 300 unemployed.
Over 9000 tons of dynamite
The view from the rocky crest near Cáceres stretches far out in all four directions. Márquez gets down on his knees to pick up a few pieces of rock. It is quartzite, a very hard, resistant rock. “9300 tons of dynamite would be used throughout the life of the project.” Márquez quotes from an environmental impact study prepared by Tecnología Extremeña del Litio, which he has studied closely with his fellow activists. According to the study, the mining project and its machinery would affect the fauna by destroying its habitat, worsening the quality of the air, making noise, and killing animals by driving over them.
The Cáceres City Council had published the environmental impact study on its website in 2018. But this was a thorn in the side of the mine operators; they requested that the mayor in office at the time, Elena Nevado, to remove the documents. Nevado, however, did not back down – and Valoriza Minería’s CEO, Marco Antonio Sosa, failed to convince her of the lithium mine. “There were no clear answers to the questions of how many jobs would be created, whether other industries would be located in the town, and how the landscape would be restored after 25 years of mining,” Nevado says.
Believing the words of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the people of Cáceres have a powerful ally in Brussels when it comes to nature conservation and biodiversity. “Making nature healthy again is key to our physical and mental wellbeing and is an ally in the fight against climate change and disease outbreaks,” von der Leyen said at the presentation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 last year. The global wildlife population has declined by sixty percent in the last forty years. One million species are threatened with extinction. Human-made destruction is to blame, according to the biodiversity strategy, which is part of the European Green Deal.
Activist Chaves from the group Salvemos la Montaña has set her hopes high on the EU. The 52-year-old was all the more surprised when she learned that the EU was supposedly supporting the project. In March 2020, the Australian group published an announcement for the Sydney Stock Exchange: “Infinity secures first European funding for lithium project”. According to the statement, EIT Innoenergy, a privately and publicly funded company, was taking an €800,000 stake in the San José lithium project in Cáceres. When the deal was finalized in June 2020, Infinity Lithium’s stock rose almost 100 percent.
In fact, the lithium project is not directly supported by the EU, but indirectly co-financed, because the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which is an EU agency, contributes 25 percent of EIT Innoenergy’s total budget. Is the EU investing public money in the lithium mine project in Cáceres? EIT Innoenergy strongly denies this. “The 800 000 Euros are not intended for the mine in Cáceres but for lithium processing,” according to a EIT Innoenergy spokesperson. But the lithium processing plant will not happen without the mine next door, says David Valls of Infinity Lithium.
The Citizens’ Platform then turned to the European Parliament. The EU Petitions Committee heard activist Chaves on September 3, 2020. One of her demands was to stop the misuse of European institutions by private companies. The committee forwarded the matter to the office of Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic. More than five months later, the response is still pending, allegedly because of delays due to the pandemic.
From raw material to battery
The activists soon realized that the EU Commission, despite its commitment to nature conservation and biodiversity, was not their ally. On the same day that Chaves explained to the EU Parliament why lithium mining in Cáceres was “absolutely not viable,” Sefcovic also held an important speech. He addressed the public to speak some “hard truths.” “Europe is highly dependent on a limited number of non-EU countries for its raw materials,” warned Sefcovic, who is also EU commissioner for interinstitutional relations and foresight. To secure Europe’s supply of strategic raw materials, these must also be mined in Europe, the Slovak politician stressed, “applying the highest environmental and social standards to that effect”. Four key projects in “sustainable mining” are expected to cover eighty percent of Europe’s lithium needs by 2025. One of these projects is the “San José Valdeflórez” lithium project in Cáceres, according to Commission sources.
Because open-pit mining destroys entire landscapes, pollutes the air and produces large amounts mine tailings, it is highly controversial and often provokes social protests. The EU Commission does not support an explicit veto right for local communities, as demanded by NGOs and scientists. “They must think we’re pretty stupid to try to sell this to us as ‘sustainable mining,'” Inma T. Castro, a math professor from Cáceres who supports the Citizens’ Platform, commented on Twitter.
Infinity Lithium promises jobs and industrial development that one of Spain’s most economically depressed regions has been longing for. “The lithium mining and processing plant will create more than a thousand direct and indirect jobs during its thirty-year life and 280 million euros of investment,” reads the group’s promotional brochure. It promises to create a regional value chain from the raw material to the finished battery. While there are plans to build battery factories in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Valencia, nothing of the sort is known in Cáceres. “Once again, we will supply cheap raw materials and the money will be made elsewhere,” the critics agree.
Courts versus construction group
With his 33 years, Luis Salaya is one of Spain’s youngest mayors. The socialist rides his bike to work at Cáceres City Hall. He replaced his conservative predecessor Elena Nevado in May 2019, who had made the environmental impact study public on the city council’s website in 2018. And he shares her stance on the lithium mine: “This is a harmful project for the city.” Because of the town’s historic core, tourism is important for the local economy. “Lithium mining on this scale would jeopardize more jobs than it would create, and it would also harm the environment,” Salaya says. But reaching 20 percent, unemployment in the city is comparatively high. Like the whole region, Cáceres suffers from an exodus of young people seeking their fortunes in Madrid or elsewhere.
People’s negative attitude towards the mine has another reason: In summer 2017, Pedro, who wishes to remain anonymous, discovered by chance how workers were preparing test drillings on his property on behalf of the company Valoriza Minería. No one had informed him, he tells the online medium “El Salto”. And Mayor Salaya recounts, “In 2018, we fined the company for improperly extending the permit for test drilling.” Trees were cut down without permission and large aisles were cut into the natural landscape, he said. However, the company refused to pay the fine. According to Infinity Lithium CEO David Valls, everything was done correctly. The case is now before the administrative court. “The company’s approach has caused a great deal of mistrust among residents and local authorities,” Luis Salaya concludes.
Unesco also got wind of the project and requested information from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. For Unesco, mining and oil production are not compatible with World Heritage status. As a consequence, the organization now monitors the matter.
The lithium project near Cáceres still lacks a mining permit, which is issued by the regional mining authority. According to regional planning, the area in question may not be used for industrial purposes. The mining company therefore initiated a rezoning process in 2018, but so far without success. Managing director Valls is nevertheless confident: “If the environmental assessment is positive, the city will be under pressure to act”. And he plays down resistance among the population. “There is a small group of affected residents who make a lot of noise,” the geologist said. “But that doesn’t mean the majority of citizens are against it.” He couldn’t support his claim with numbers, however.
Meanwhile, the citizens’ platform has collected 35,000 signatures against the mining project and just last weekend mobilized 2800 people for a human chain action. Twenty-three out of twenty-five councilors in the city government are currently opposed to the lithium mine. Mayor Salaya also has a hard time imagining that the environmental impact assessment will be positive. The planned mine is just far too close to the city.
Resistance elsewhere
Strikingly, however, in recent years significantly more exploration licenses have been issued in the region and beyond. Around 230 are registered with the mining authority in Extremadura alone. More and more companies are searching for rare earths, vanadium, uranium, copper and gold.
In the province of Badajoz, for example, Valoriza Minería is pushing ahead with a copper-gold project together with the Canadian company Lundin Mining. And here, too, there is resistance to the open-pit mining project: The citizens’ association Alconchel sin Mina documented irregularities and official sloppiness. “In December 2020, the Guadiana Hydrographic Confederation opened a sanctioning file against the company for alleged unauthorized groundwater extraction,” according to Ángel Vicente, spokesman for Alconchel sin Mina. Local politicians also criticize the non-transparent approach. “The exploration of the deposits began as early as 2002,” says David Fernández, mayor of the small town of Táliga. “To this day, however, I have not received any documentation about the project, although the geologist from Valoriza Minería promised me this a year ago.”
The activists of Salvemos la Montaña near Cáceres also refuse to let up, and continue their resistance. Or as Montaña Chaves said, “As long as all the proceedings are not shelved, we won’t be able to sleep peacefully.”
This article first appeared in the Wochenzeitung No. 09/2021, on March 04, 2021 (https://www.woz.ch/2109/lithium/das-weisse-gold).
About the Author
Linda Osusky works as a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her approach of telling stories is strongly shaped her my studies in Cultural and Social Anthropology: observe, listen, participate. She came across lithium when researching Spain’s economically weakest communities. Hundreds of mining projects exploring battery minerals are located in Extremadura, Europe’s southwestern periphery. The contradictions of the transition towards a sustainable, green economy are subject of the documentary film she is currently working on.
