NEW LINES MAGAZINE (24/4/2024)
Under the banner of a “green transition,” the EU is rushing to revive mining to secure critical raw materials. Plans to build large, open-pit mines in northeastern Portugal have been met with strong opposition from local communities, who are contesting the state’s authority to grant mining licenses without their consent.
As the sun begins its gradual descent in the mountains of Barroso, in northeast Portugal, it casts golden hues upon the region’s vast pine and oak forests. The air fills with the gentle hum of bees collecting nectar from the heather that blankets the rugged landscape in swaths of vivid purple and pink.
August is the peak season for honey, when the heather is in full bloom. Carlos “Libo” Goncalves is as busy as his bees. After taking his horses up the oak-studded hills that surround the village of Covas do Barroso, he dons his protective gear and hurries to the hives he has spread across his village’s common lands.
With an expertise that comes from years of practice, Libo collects the dark heather honey of Barroso, a prized product with a protected designation of origin. The region is one of only ten in Europe recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a Globally Important Agricultural System — a landscape that combines agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage.
The rich, dark-amber honey, with its tangy taste, thick texture, and a distinctive strong, warm and floral aroma, wins competitions year after year, Libo explains proudly. “We have continued the traditions of our parents and grandparents, their way of caring for the land and farming in a sustainable way. This is why our products are recognized internationally.”
For decades, Libo has repeated the age-old rituals he inherited from his ancestors, tending his hives and horses. But in recent years, uncertainty has hung over his familiar routine like a shadow, as Covas do Barroso began to attract unwanted attention, bringing in researchers and people in suits talking about investment and business prospects.
They didn’t come for the award-winning honey or any of the other renowned agricultural products, but for the wealth that lies beneath — the lithium buried in the hills where Libo keeps his hives and where his horses roam.
Savannah Resources, a London-based company, wants to build what could become Western Europe’s largest open-pit lithium mine in Covas do Barroso. Last May, the company received preliminary approval from Portuguese authorities to move forward with plans to develop a lithium mine on about 2,076 acres, three-quarters of which is community-owned land.
Known as “baldios,” the common lands where Libo spends every summer caring for his hives and collecting the rich amber honey could soon turn into a moonscape of tailings and waste rock. “Where will I take my bees?” he asks, distraught by the company’s plans to blast the hills to extract battery-grade lithium.
According to Savannah Resources, the lithium buried under Covas do Barroso would be enough to produce about half a million electric car batteries each year. The company has marketed the project as a source of much-needed lithium for an electrified future that would create 215 direct jobs, along with between 500 and 600 indirect jobs, and contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to Portugal’s GDP. But the promises of jobs and investment have failed to convince local communities. The proposed lithium mine would be open for only about a decade; they have been farming these lands for centuries.
“Mining requires a lot of water. It will take the water we need for our pastures, for the corn and potatoes we grow. It will ruin hundreds of hectares of common lands and will have a lot of impact on our products,” Libo says, apprehensively.
The company hopes to receive its final environmental license this year and aims to start production in 2026. But residents of Covas do Barroso are determined to halt it. Fearing the mine will turn the verdant hills into craters, contaminate local resources, disrupt livelihoods and deprive them of communal lands, residents of Covas do Barroso have strongly opposed Savannah Resources’ plans.
“The dimensions of the mine are completely out of proportion,” Libo says. The company plans to dig four open pits, the largest of which will be about 650 yards wide and only a few hundred yards from the village of Romainho, in Covas do Barroso.
Since residents of Covas do Barroso first heard about Savannah Resources’ plans in 2017, they have been organizing protests and anti-mining camps, are refusing to lease the village’s common lands, and have filed legal challenges to stop the company’s operations.
“They think people here have to be sacrificed so they can take the lithium from our hills. But they have to respect us and our way of living,” Libo says (…)
Read more: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/in-portugals-rural-north-communities-are-resisting-lithium-mining/
Photos by Diana Takacsova