Environmental groups from Argentina, Bolivia and Chile have called on the secretary general of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, a treaty better known as the Ramsar Convention, to press for a regional policy on the use of wetlands for lithium mining. The organizations warned Secretary General Musonda Mumba of the growing pressure lithium mining is placing on high-elevation wetlands in their region as demand grows for the metal as an ingredient in electric-car batteries needed for the world’s energy transition. Lithium deposits in northwestern Argentina, northern Chile and southern Bolivia account for an estimated 56% of world reserves of the sought-after metal, earning the region the label “Lithium Triangle.” In all three countries, lithium extraction involves pumping brines from beneath Andean salt flats into shallow ponds, where lithium is separated from other salts by evaporation. The method consumes vast quantities of water in a region...
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Renowned Brazilian photojournalist and environmentalist Sebastião Salgado, who demonstrated how to reverse ecological destruction, died May 23, at age 81. Although Salgado was best known for taking powerful black-and-white photos that captured the exploitation of the environment and the marginalized populations laboring in it, one of his most personal and impactful projects was to reforest a 711-hectare (1,757-acre) inherited ranch. In December 1990, when Salgado and his wife Lélia visited his family’s former cattle ranch for the first time in over two decades, the couple had not seen the property since before they self-exiled to Paris in 1969. Their exile came five years after a coup had initiated a 21-year military dictatorship in Brazil. Long before the coup, the property, located in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, had boasted a lush expanse of Atlantic Forest, the richly biodiverse woods that once covered much...
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An Argentine-Chilean project has led to the first sighting of a huemul deer (Hippocamelus bisulcus) in nearly three decades in the wild in Argentina’s Lanín National Park, located in Argentina’s Neuquén province, near the Chilean border. The effort involves Argentina’s National Parks Administration (APN) and Huilo Huilo Foundation, a Chilean conservation nonprofit. Since 2005, the foundation has been raising huemules and releasing them into the wild on the Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve, a 100,000-hectare (247,000-acre) conservation area the eponymous foundation owns in Chile’s Los Ríos region, 860 kilometers (534 miles) south of Santiago. The reserve, where the foundation has undertaken ecotourism projects, is contiguous to Lanín Park, forming a natural, cross-border ecological corridor. Given the two properties’ contiguity, APN and Huilo Huilo have cooperated on environmental management over the years. In April, the foundation and APN signed an agreement setting the stage for the creation of...
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The Balbina hydroelectric dam in Brazil’s Amazon region has caused an environmental impact more severe than originally expected, a recent study suggests. The study, by the government-run National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), says that since Balbina’s completion in 1989, the dam on the Uatumã River has led to the loss of at least seven endemic fish species accustomed to fast-moving water. Built to help power the central Amazonian city of Manaus, the dam has also drawn criticism for generating large quantities of methane—a particularly potent greenhouse gas—due to the rotting of vegetation covered by its enormous reservoir. Balbina is widely viewed as one of Brazil’s biggest environmental boondoggles. The dam inundated close to 1,158 sq. miles (3,000 sq. kms) of the state of Amazonas, destroying enormous swaths of forest, dislodging two Indigenous communities and costing more than two times its originally estimated price tag of...
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A German court on May 28 dismissed a Peruvian farmer’s appeal for damages from a German energy giant on the grounds that its greenhouse-gas emissions contribute to global warming, putting his home in danger from a nearby glacial lake. The court ruled that Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s house was not at significant risk if the dam of a glacial lake in the mountains high above the city of Huaraz, where he lives, should fail. But while the court rejected the plaintiff ’s risk assessment, it acknowledged that a polluter can be held liable for climate damage that occurs in another country, even if it is operating under a permit granted there. Environmental lawyers say this is a legal milestone, one that could spur similar lawsuits around the world. “It’s probably the first clear legal pronouncement [from a higher court] that fossil-fuel companies can be held legally responsible for climate...
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