The Andean Salt Flats, the Climate Crisis, and the Banality of Mining Evil
The salt flats are increasingly being exploited as a source of minerals for so-called “green technologies” that are proposed as solutions to the climate crisis. These technologies include photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries, as well as those essential for global communication, transportation, medicine, and militarism (Klinger, 2017, p. 4). Minerals are also vital for infrastructure and advanced technologies that improve quality of life and save lives, including surgical lasers and pacemakers (Klinger, 2017, p. 44). Still, they are also used in weapons of different magnitudes. That is, we live in a world shaped by what I broadly term the banality of mining evil: state-corporate mining is unstoppable not because minerals are essential for life but because they serve the necropower and technologies that uphold racial capitalism and settler colonialism.
The ongoing search for minerals like lithium, boron, copper, nickel, graphite, manganese, and cobalt has resulted in an unprecedented large-scale expansion of extraction activities. Anthropologist Raphael Deberdt and geographer Philippe Le Billon define “climate extractivism” as “the questionable intensification of extraction as a solution to the climate crisis and an iteration of the tech-driven pursuit of extreme resources” (2023, p. 1878). In fact, “climate extractivism” must also be viewed as a form of environmental and climate racism, as the territories chosen for exploitation often belong to Indigenous peoples or other communities of color, who already struggle to adapt to unstable weather conditions. Moreover, these extractive activities are driven by multinational companies that take advantage of state policies and often operate with minimal legal and ethical constraints.
The dispossession methods employed by mining companies align with the mechanisms identified by British-American geographer David Harvey, which are based on Marx’s description of primitive accumulation. This frequently includes the suppression of alternative Indigenous forms of production and consumption, the colonial, neo-colonial, and imperial appropriation of natural resources, as well as the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of populations (Harvey, 2004, p.74). Harvey argues that the developmental state plays “a critical role in defining both the intensity and the paths of new forms of capital accumulation” (2004, p.74). He suggests that the violent patterns associated with “accumulation by dispossession” reveal the “persistence of the predatory practices of ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ accumulation within the long historical geography of capital accumulation” (Harvey, 2004, p.74). Consequently, the increased extraction aimed at addressing climate change serves as another mechanism of dispossession within the foundational structure of the settler colonial state, as “invasion is a structure, not an event” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 388).
In this essay, I will discuss the growing mining activities in the Andean salt flats, which are ancestral territories of many Indigenous peoples. While most salt flats currently exploited for lithium are located in the Atacama Plateau—a desert region bordering Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, collectively renamed/marketed as the “lithium triangle”—I will focus on a lesser-known site: the Laguna de Salinas salt flat in Arequipa, Peru, which I visited in August 2024. Laguna de Salinas has been exploited for boron extraction since the 1980s and is now being targeted by lithium companies. As I will elaborate in the following section, large-scale mining poses a significant threat to the traditional peasant economy in Laguna de Salinas, which relies on livestock raising and salt extraction, endangering the local communities.
Salt and Water
Laguna de Salinas (see Figure 1) is situated in the Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve, a protected area located at an altitude of 4,500 meters above sea level in the Peruvian departments of Arequipa and Moquegua. Despite the reserve’s protected status, the Italian mining company Inkabor has been extracting the borate mineral ulexite in this area since 1985. It is reported to be the only site in Peru where borate reserves exceed 10 million tons (Millas, 2020, p.3).
Image of a saline lagoon reflecting the mountains. Laguna de Salinas, Arequipa, Peru. 2024. Image by Barbara Galindo. Copyright Barbara Galindo, 2024.
When visiting Laguna de Salinas with tour companies, visitors may notice several dump trucks traveling along the narrow, winding dirt road. Aside from these trucks crossing the road and the company buildings that are visible from the salt flats (see Figure 2), the open-pit mine itself remains concealed from view.
Image of the Inkabor company buildings from a distance. Laguna de Salinas, Arequipa, Peru. 2024. Image by Barbara Galindo. Copyright Barbara Galindo, 2024.
The company’s name, Inkabor, suggests a symbolic usurpation of territory that preludes the de facto appropriation. It does not simply erase native symbols and replace them with those of the dominant culture. Instead, it combines and distorts references to Inka culture with boron extraction, presenting a facade of legitimate modern mining while diverting attention from the “slow violence” (Nixon, 2011) and “ecosocial torture” (Marcos, 2021) associated with the extraction process. Reported polluting effects of boron mining include dust, which kills animals, and the toxins derived from its extraction by burning pastures (Zapata-Delgado, 2019, p.14). Additionally, the company has been accused of using large quantities of lake water while intentionally drying and sealing springs to facilitate boron extraction from the ground (Ampudia, 2014; “Salvemos las Lagunas de Salinas”, 2014).
This region is the ancestral territory of three Indigenous communities: Salinas Huito, Salinas Moche, and Santa Lucía de Salinas. Conflicts between these communities have escalated due to a territorial boundary dispute that dates back to the 1980s. The Salinas Moche and Santa Lucía de Salinas communities, located in Moquegua, allege that Salinas Huito, situated in Arequipa, has encroached upon their territory (“Comuneros de Salinas Moche”, 2021). By employing some Indigenous men and women in mining, the company worsens divisions among communities. It destabilizes the traditional peasant economy involving livestock raising (see Figure 3) and salt extraction (see Figures 4 and 5).
For many Indigenous peoples, salt is considered a living entity, a relative, or a mother with whom they engage in a relationship of reciprocity (Kachi Yupi, 2015, p. 13). In the Amazonian-Andean Indigenous world, salt was revered as a divine ancestor (Renard-Casevitz, 1992, 1993; Urton, 1999) and has historically been a valuable currency that inspired anticolonial resistance (Varese, 2011; Santos-Granero, 1992).
Image of camelids grazing on the banks of a saline lagoon. Laguna de Salinas, Arequipa, Peru. 2024. Image by Barbara Galindo. Copyright Barbara Galindo, 2024.
Image of salt piles viewed from a distance and close-up. Laguna de Salinas, Arequipa, Peru. 2024. Image by Barbara Galindo. Copyright Barbara Galindo, 2024.
Before the Spanish conquest, the Uyuni salt flat, located in present-day Bolivia, “was central to salt production in the Andes and the source of highly reputable salt specialists recognized for their skill in procuring surface salts underlain by saline waters” (DeLeonardis, 2011, p.475). These specialists developed a refined “knowledge of the desert and its aquifers” that made them “less vulnerable to the occupational and structural aftershocks of the empire’s dissolution” (DeLeonardis, 2011, p.472), since salt production did not decrease and became very necessary in the colonial period for the benefit of silver (Cobo, 1890, p.236). However, when “the arm of Toledan reforms took hold,” the salt specialists were finally displaced (DeLeonardis, 2011, p.472).
As Spanish colonizers turned salt into a mere resource for silver mining, today, salt and water are being sacrificed for the extraction of lithium and boron. This extraction occurs in fragile ecosystems that are already facing increased threats due to unstable weather patterns caused by the climate crisis. Will predatory mining ultimately destroy the saline lakes and jeopardize the conditions necessary for life to continue in the Andes?
About the Author
Barbara Galindo (she/her) is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow (2024-2025) in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Previously, she worked as an ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow in Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity (2022-2024) at the Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). She holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her research focuses on Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Latin American cultural production, with an emphasis on the Andean and Amazonian regions. She is currently working on her first book, which examines the role of collaborative film and video in decolonizing modern Western mining narratives and advocating for the visual, political, cultural, and territorial sovereignty of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other marginalized communities in South America.
Works Cited
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