We will screen the documentary “Antes del litio” (Before lithium), a film that gives a voice to the indigenous communities located in the Guayatayoc lagoon basin, a territory tendered by the government of the Province of Jujuy, Argentina, to transnational companies for the exploitation of lithium mines.
The exploitation and plundering of natural resources by foreign companies in indigenous territories is hushed up and complicit with governments. Currently, in the north of Argentina, there are several active projects for the extraction of lithium in salt flats and mountains, inhabited by communities that are resisting the onslaught of companies and governments that want to exploit these areas without the consent of the communities that inhabit them ancestrally.
Created by Costa Rica Producciones, with the support of Barcelona City Council and the Plurinational Observatory of Andean Salt Flats (OPSAL), it is one of the results of the AlterNativa Intercambio con Pueblos Indígenas project entitled “Lithium and Human Rights Violations in the Public Purchase of Electric Vehicles”.
The screening will be followed by a debate on the impacts of the transition to so-called “green” energies, promoted by the global North. This transition, which involves extractivism and the mining of natural resources such as lithium, is affecting diverse territories, many of them in indigenous areas.
A member of AlterNativa Intercambio con Pueblos Indígenas and Pamela Benicio, protagonist of the documentary and testimony of a community in Jujuy (Argentina) affected by lithium extraction, will participate.
