UCLA

In the last decade, the demand for lithium has skyrocketed after it was discovered that it was efficient for making batteries. Lithium’s tremendous growth forecast going forward is characterized by the coming together of energy, automotive, and technology industries to foster the future of renewable energy. While this global commodity market may present the opportunity for a sustainable future, the extraction of lithium is unsustainable in the local context. The teleconnections framework provides a lens to understand how political and economic processes—spatially distant to the site of extraction—accelerate biophysical changes at the local scale. This thesis examines the role of the provincial government as an actor and stakeholder in lithium mining projects and the extent to which this translates to land use changes in Jujuy, Argentina. I approach the role of Jujuy’s provincial government as modeling the neo-extractivist logic of development. Based on a review of relevant national and provincial legal and political frameworks, I explore the various ways in which the state—as a governing authority and stakeholder—justifies the intensification and exploitation of lithium mining as a model of development. I suggest that Jujuy’s provincial government is motivated by the short-term socio-economic benefits of lithium mining, but it is at the expense of long-term environmental damage. Next, using publicly available, high resolution satellite imagery from Google Earth Pro, I quantify the biophysical changes of neo-extractivism in Jujuy over a four-year period—from 2016 to 2020. I focus on the Sales de Jujuy lithium mining project in Jujuy to identify the change in land use for mining operations. The area change in surface mining operations illustrates that land use can undergo large area transformations reflective of shifting political and economic conditions at varying scales. By addressing both the human and environmental dimensions of lithium mining in Jujuy, this thesis calls attention to the global market conditions and organization of Argentina’s lithium mining sector (through its policies and governance structures), which give rise to the environmental problems directly impacting the local scale.