The similarities between the Transition Minerals and Fossil Fuel Economies and their Impacts on Indigenous Peoples: the Case of Lithium

Written on 03 December 2025. Posted in News

BY EDSON KRENAK FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

The destruction of territories rich in biodiversity and cultural heritage is a concerning consequence of the global demand for minerals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium. These territories are being sacrificed in the name of economic growth and the so-called energy transition, as governments and corporations prioritise short-term gains. To challenge this contradiction and fight for their rights, Indigenous Peoples' proposals are not merely technical fixes but holistic responses rooted in their traditional knowledge, territorial sovereignty, and cultural survival.

Guided by its just transition policy, the United Nations aims to phase out the fossil fuel economy (oil, gas, coal). To achieve this, the public and private sectors are building a renewable and “green” economy. However, this requires vast quantities of transition minerals, placing enormous pressure on land, forests and Indigenous communities, whose territories hold 54 percent of the minerals the world needs for the energy transition.

Moreover, the contradiction is that the extraction of minerals for “green technologies” relies on the same destructive practices that defined the fossil fuel economy. The experiences of and testimonies from communities in the “Lithium Triangle” (Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia) and Brazil (in the Jequitinhonha Valley and the Amazon) show that this approach does not end the creation of sacrifice zones: it merely shifts them, expands frontiers, and weakens legal protections.

The intensive use of water aquifers and subsoil sources, along with highly polluting mining processes, is thus resulting in devastating loss and damage in Indigenous territories. This reality exposes a fundamental hypocrisy of the “just transition”, because it is built on unjust foundations, replicating the same patterns of ecological and social violence that it seeks to overcome, and undermining the ethical principle that no one should be left behind in climate objectives.

The Mineral Rush and the Re-creation of Sacrifice Zones

These questions become even more urgent in the context of the extraction of transition minerals such as copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium. In South America, particularly in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil, expanding lithium mining operations are posing serious threats to the health of Indigenous territories, disrupting fundamental biomes where biocultural balance is key to tackling climate change impacts, such as increasing heat.

These regions, which supply large amounts of lithium (a crucial metal for electric vehicle and computer batteries), are rapidly becoming new sacrifice zones, endangering vital water sources, unique forests, and the cultural fabric of Indigenous communities. This pattern of creating sacrifice zones is also evident in the fossil fuel economy, where extraction, refining, and waste from oil, gas, and coal have disproportionately contaminated Indigenous lands and waterways.

The unresolved management of nuclear waste thus has its parallel in transition mineral mining and tailings management. All of this perpetuates the crisis and exposes the clash between state policies, corporate activities, and Indigenous sacred sites. Indeed, non-governmental organisations, academics, and Indigenous advocates have been denouncing the fact that most of these indirect impacts of mining waste are intentionally being ignored by governments and policymakers.

The negative impacts sometimes explicitly form part of state or corporate strategies to displace communities from their traditional territories. In the words of sociologists Robert D. Bullard and Valerie Kuletz, sacrifice zones involve “an all-too-familiar pattern of disregard for the people that inhabit these desert areas, masking an exploitation of their land that goes back to the beginning of the so-called westward expansion”.

Lithium Extraction and Indigenous Resistance in South America

Lithium is an essential component of renewable energy technologies, often found on or near Indigenous territories. In the Jequitinhonha River Valley in Minas Gerais (Brazil), companies are developing several lithium mines, with 17 pits planned. Activist Djama Arana, from the local community, describes how the government and corporations are turning the valley into a “sacrifice zone”, repeating patterns of environmental destruction driven by economic interests.

Similarly, in the “Lithium Triangle”, which covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, Indigenous communities are facing threats to their lands and livelihoods. Over 400 Indigenous Peoples inhabit this region, yet many do not hold the legal title to their ancestral lands. Nati Machaca, a protester in Purmamarca (Argentina), voices her concerns regarding the environmental impacts, highlighting the severe ecological damage caused by lithium extraction: “Our land is drying up, and our water is contaminated.”

The lithium mining boom in the Jequitinhonha Valley in Minas Gerais is bringing serious challenges to Indigenous and traditional communities. The rapid expansion of mining threatens the environment: daily air pollution, high temperatures, destruction of the local ecosystem, and dead rivers where communities once fished, swam, and practised rituals. When I visited the area last July, I witnessed firsthand the impacts: cracked walls in homes, elderly residents with respiratory issues, and communities stripped of their cultural and spiritual connection to the land.

Lithium is extracted from hard rocks (Brazil) or from lithium-rich brines (Lithium Triangle). Global demand for lithium has soared due to the push toward electric vehicles, although the exact amount needed remains uncertain. This underlines the urgency of strengthening the legal protection of Indigenous land rights and promoting sustainable mining practices. Recycling and repurposing lithium from used batteries could reduce mining, although neither industry nor governments seem interested in investing in recycling, claiming it is more expensive. Economic cost appears to be the only one they consider.

Ecocide under the Guise of “Green Energy”

Despite international legal frameworks such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Indigenous communities often find themselves excluded from decision-making processes, with governments failing to enforce the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). As with nuclear power, the exploitation of lithium for electric vehicles highlights the political, military and economic benefits of these resources, which overshadow the social and environmental harm they cause.

Ecocide and cultural genocide are replicated under the guise of “green energy”, as Indigenous lands are transformed into sacrifice zones. This exploitation is also evident in the Jequitinhonha Valley, where lithium mining is contaminating water sources vital to local communities, and in the Lithium Triangle, where water-intensive mining is endangering the sustainability of Indigenous ways of life. Both regions reflect a colonial pattern of resource plundering whereby economic gain elsewhere comes at the expense of Indigenous survival and environmental health.

The re-creation of sacrifice zones by the transition mineral industry is similar to those created by oil drilling and coal mining. Both lead to land grabs, water depletion, and pollution: from the draining of aquifers and water sources by lithium mining in the Atacama Desert and Jequitinhonha, to the human rights violations of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A development model based on resource extraction for export and on the biocultural and economic impoverishment of local communities is thus being reproduced, reflecting the colonial pattern of the fossil fuel economy. It is a schizophrenic climate solution whereby the environmental benefits of renewables are enjoyed in the so-called Global North (excluding Arctic Indigenous Peoples, who face the same issues as their relatives in the south), while the high environmental and social costs are borne by Indigenous communities and populations of the Global South.

The Indigenous Overarching Principles to Solve the Problem

To face up to this dire scenario, Indigenous Peoples have been advocating for the powerful overarching principle of an holistic approach. To describe this approach, I highlight three proposals from the Indigenous Peoples Dialogue (an event that happened in February 2025 and was coordinated by my team at Cultural Survival and SIRGE Coalition):

The non-negotiable governance standard of the Free Prior, and Informed Consent. FPIC is the legal-political tool with which to defend the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It has become the central pillar of Indigenous territorial advocacy and governance, enshrined in international laws such as UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169. FPIC is not a simple checklist or consultation protocol: it is based on the right to self-determination and governance, which means the power to say “no” to projects that harm their lands and livelihoods. The debate is not whether a project will happen, but whether it should happen at all. The right and decision-making power belongs to the community, not to the corporations.

The Indigenous stewardship model instead of a resource-driven model.  The extractivist model is fundamentally opposed to Indigenous worldviews, especially those of the Atacameño peoples and the communities of Jequitinhonha. They inhabit these territories not to manage resources but to develop and maintain relationships, responsibilities, and reciprocity (the three “R”s of development from an Indigenous perspective). This model shifts the goal from resource extraction to territorial integrity for life.

The legal and political imagination solution: a rights-based approach for humans and more-than-humans. This point has a deep ontological connection to the previous one. The problem with conventional legal frameworks (even FPIC) is that they ignore context and are based on concessions, not reciprocity and care. They are designed to regulate extraction, not to prevent it. They therefore set “acceptable” levels of harm, pollution, and violations, making destruction measurable and legalisable.

The Transition from a Rights-Based Approach

The Indigenous movement has been proposing strong advocacy and litigation, together with a creative and courageous interpretation of international laws and policies with which to transform the legal and political landscape. Communities in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil are fighting for the rights of their river ancestors and their forest relatives because, from our perspective, they sustain life: human life in healthy and safe conditions. Technology cannot do that.

The exploitation of Indigenous lands to satisfy global economic demands, without sufficient legal protections or respect for Indigenous rights, is a reality. A just transition cannot be hypocritically built upon the very violation it seeks to solve: that generated by the fossil fuel exploitation model. The sourcing of lithium for electric vehicles and other technologies, including military drones, poses this stark paradox and contradiction: its extraction is harming peoples and environments from South America to Africa and even Europe.

A truly just transition must therefore be rooted in a rights-based approach that recognises that the integrity of life in territories is non-negotiable. Humanity must demand circular economies, reduced consumption, and alternative technologies that do not simply shift the burden of extraction from one right to another.

Edson Krenak is an activist, Indigenous writer, and member of the Krenak people. He is a doctoral candidate in Legal Anthropology at the University of Vienna and Brazil Manager at Cultural Survival. He serves on the boards of SIRGE Coalition, the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA), and the Global Tailings Management Institute (GTMI).

Cover photo: International Dialogue of Communities Affected by Lithium, Brazil 2025. Photo: Cultural Survival / Djalma Arana (2025)

Tags: Indigenous Debates