Beneath its vast salt flats lies a treasure trove of lithium — the lifeblood of electric car batteries, solar panels, and the green energy revolution. But for the indigenous communities who have called this arid land home for generations, the price of progress has been unbearable: vanishing water, dying ecosystems, and a way of life slipping through their fingers like desert sand. As corporations and governments celebrate the rise of "clean" energy, the people of the Atacama are left to ask — who is really paying the cost?

Key points:

Lithium mining in Chile's Atacama Desert consumes staggering amounts of water — 65 percent of the region's water supply — while local farmers struggle to survive.

The industry's explosive growth (global demand more than doubled between 2021 and 2024) comes at the expense of flamingos, wetlands, and ancient carob trees.

Indigenous communities, sidelined in decision-making, warn that corporations treat their homeland as a "natural laboratory" for untested extraction technologies.

Despite promises of economic benefits, locals reject hollow payouts, preferring their ancestral right to water and land over temporary financial relief.

The water wars: "Before, the Vega was green. Now, everything is dry"

For Raquel Celina Rodriguez, the Atacama salt flats were once a thriving oasis. "You couldn't see the animals through the grass," she recalls, her voice thick with sorrow. Today, the land is cracked and barren, her family's sheep-rearing tradition decimated by drought and the relentless thirst of lithium mining. Each ton of lithium extracted requires 500,000 gallons of water, draining aquifers that took millennia to form. In Peine, Sergio Cubillos watches as his community's drinking water systems collapse, replaced by pipelines feeding corporate evaporation pools. "Mining companies have taken millions of cubic meters," he says. "Decisions are made in Santiago — far from the people who suffer."

Biologist Faviola González documents the fallout in Los Flamencos National Reserve, where flamingo chicks are a rare sight and shrinking lagoons disrupt entire food chains. "The water here is ancient," she explains. "If we take too much, there's nothing left to replenish it." A 2022 report by the U.S. National Resources Defense Council found that one-third of native carob trees near SQM mining sites had died by 2013. Yet, as Faviola notes, the world shrugs: "Electric cars are for Europeans — not us. But it's our water they're stealing."