COLCHANI, Bolivia Bolivia is taking another shot at lithium investment. After decades of stalled projects and soured relationships with international investors, the central government, under left-wing President Luis Arce, is evaluating offers from six overseas mining companies eager to help the country set up a monopoly on the world’s largest deposit of untapped lithium. […]
FLORES One of Guatemala’s most under-threat protected areas may face future oil and gas development, as lawmakers consider whether to expand extractive activities in the region and the construction of additional pipelines. A bill in Guatemala’s congress would not only renew a contract for the current oil and gas pipeline that already operates in […]
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile The Bío Bío River is the second-longest in Chile, forming in the Andes near the Argentine border and running 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest before emptying into the Pacific. The river passes through rural, sometimes uninhabited, mountains and foothills, making it seem ideal for hydroelectric development. But other areas are home […]
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile For the last 30 years, more and more hydroelectric power plants have been popping up along Chile’s Bío Bío River, the second-largest in the country. Every time a new one breaks ground, Indigenous communities speak out about the environmental and cultural damage that will result, the flooding of their lands, and […]
LA PAZ Gold is Bolivia’s second-biggest export, valued at more than $1 billion annually and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the country. But much of that gold has uncertain origins, coming from somewhere deep in the Amazon rainforest, where environmental regulations often go unenforced. Setting up camp in secluded parts of the […]