President Kast promises investors a faster route to one of the world’s most coveted minerals – but this threatens the ecosystems that surround them.
A long the dry plains shared by Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, a chain of high-altitude, wind-blown salt flats has long been seen as central to the global energy transition. This trio of territories is the Lithium Triangle, which holds more than half of the world’s known reserves of the mineral. Lithium is needed for electric vehicle batteries and other renewable energy technologies.
Chile possesses the single largest share of the triangle, with a string of salt flats west of the Andes. These mineral-rich brine deposits run south from the vast Salar de Atacama. Lithium is mostly extracted from this brine, which is found approximately 10 metres below these lakes. In other words, this is a lucrative lithium corridor.
The new government of Chile is signalling a sharp turn in the country’s approach to lithium, one of its most strategic assets. The national resource policy has shifted frequently in recent years, leaving companies, communities and investors navigating an uncertain landscape.
Gabriel Boric, the former, leftist president, saw a way to bolster revenues by part-nationalising lithium with his 2023 National Lithium Strategy (ENL). But his carefully laid plans have been dealt a blow by José Antonio Kast, the ultraconservative who took office on 11 March. Kast vows an abrupt change of course.
One of the Kast administration’s first moves was to place the economy and mining portfolios under the same minister, Daniel Mas – a signal that economic growth, the streamlining of permit approvals and mining policy will all move forward in unison. As Kast said during his presidential campaign: “Our approach focuses on reducing the regulatory and tax burden and ensuring certainty, so as to foster a competitive market and attract new investment.”
This means Kast must now manage a delicate balancing act between the United States and China. Meanwhile, some of the most fragile high-Andean ecosystems are at stake.
A strategy left unfinished
Boric’s ENL sought to make Chile the world’s largest lithium producer, while also strengthening the state’s role in the industry and upholding stringent environmental regulations. It also created a network of protected areas, aiming to protect 30% of them by 2030, with 7.7% so far protected. This nationalisation drive birthed the NovaAndino Litio venture between the state copper company Codelco and Chile’s chemicals giant SQM. NovaAndino Litio was established in December 2025 and has licenses to operate on the Salar de Atacama until 2060.
The ENL’s framework remains nominally in place under Kast but aside from NovaAndino Litio, its tendered projects are still awaiting approval. Kast, who is seen as more pro-business than Boric, is likely to take a different approach according to Francisco Urdinez, who directs the Millennium Nucleus on the Impacts of China in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Ultimately, [the ENL] was left unfinished by the previous government and the current administration has no interest in pushing it forward,” Urdinez tells Dialogue Earth, “because the values of that policy are very much against its general economic strategy. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t believe the ENL is going anywhere – at least for the four years Kast is in power.”
In an indication of this shift in approach, the mining ministry told Dialogue Earth that Chile had failed to make the most of previous lithium booms. In a statement, it said its objective is to “ensure projects are effectively developed, using the instruments established by the current legal framework and providing certainty to investors who believe in our country”.
“Every time a project is not executed or its processing is unnecessarily extended, the possibility of Chile developing, generating jobs and improving people’s quality of life is delayed,” they added.
Chile remains second to Australia for national lithium production. The two countries account for approximately 59% of global output. But some of this lustre has begun to dull. Over the past few years, significant new deposits have been discovered elsewhere and, coupled with the drop in price to about a quarter of its November 2022 value, enthusiasm has dissipated.
Fragile ecosystems at risk
Kast has sought to weaken environmental protection thus far. In his first week in power, the president repealed 43 environmental decrees put forward by Boric. This removed the protected status assigned to some endangered species and killed legislation that would have given Chile the fourth-largest marine protected area in the world. Among the quashed decrees were six that created protected areas on salt flats and high-Andean lakes.
Communities living near the salt flats fear Kast’s business-first mantra could see the salt absorb the consequences, as the push for faster permitting puts pressure on environmental assessments and community consultation. Spokespeople for the Kast government have spoken regularly of their frustration at a “permitting culture” surrounding extraction projects.
Extracting lithium from brine draws water out of the underground systems that sustain flamingo breeding grounds and wetlands. A 2024 study found the Salar de Atacama (the largest salt flat in Chile) to be sinking by 1-2 cm per year because of this extraction.
“As a result of increased water evaporation from the lithium ponds, we are seeing less vegetation cover, decreased flamingo populations and the loss of nesting sites, and damage to microbial structures in wetland areas,” microbiologist Dr Cristina Dorador, who has studied ecosystems of the salt flats extensively, tells Dialogue Earth.
The industry is set to expand into other salt flats aside from Atacama, causing concern among communities living near salt flats. The Maricunga salt flat hosts the second-largest lithium deposit in Chile. Codelco is exploring a USD 900 million project with Rio Tinto, the UK-headquartered mining giant, and is projected to begin production in 2030.
“The Maricunga salt flat complex is a sacred place for the Colla people,” Cindy Quevedo tells Dialogue Earth, fighting back tears as she explains the impacts of this project for her people and territory. She is president of the Consejo Nacional Pueblo Colla, an Indigenous representative organisation that brings together Colla communities.
“It’s not just a salt flat: it hosts biodiversity in its lagoons and is an important biological corridor where there is flora and fauna, but also where our most sacred apu [sacred mountain spirit] watches over us – the Copayapu Volcano.”
Caught between Washington and Beijing
The race to control global battery supply chains is accelerating. Chile now finds itself sandwiched between the interests of two superpowers, the US and China. The latter has manoeuvred itself into a commanding position when it comes to mineral supply chains and the US under president Trump has sought to counter this, particularly in Latin America.
Kast appears to have picked a side very quickly: on his first day in office, he rushed back from his inauguration ceremony in the coastal city of Valparaíso to sign a critical minerals deal with the US. His far-right bedfellow, Argentina’s president Javier Milei, has also signed an MOU with the US.
However, the balancing act is less about lithium specifically than about the broader economic relationship. China remains Chile’s largest copper buyer – a trade relationship worth billions annually – giving China significant leverage.
“I think that the objective now is to use lithium and other metals as a bargaining chip in exchange for geopolitical favours,” says Urdinez. “Part of the aim of those memoranda [with the US] is to prevent China from accessing certain key minerals and elements, such as rare earths.”
Chinese companies have already been burned by investments in the lithium industry. Plans for a USD 290 million BYD battery plant and USD 233 million Tsingshan facility were both scrapped last year when lithium prices slumped. Tianqui Lithium, another Chinese company, owns a sizeable stake in SQM, but Chinese companies remain minority market players in Chilean lithium, without decision-making power.
Whatever policy the Kast administration pursues, access to lithium currently depends on a state-sanctioned structure. There are currently 10 projects in the queue for approval, and Corfo has stated that these will be respected.
With a potential flood of lithium investment looming on the horizon if regulations are weakened, communities fear ecosystems and habitats are likely to suffer the repercussions.
“I live here in the mountains – why should I have to be impacting and destroying my sacred lands to provide solutions for people on another continent who haven’t stopped their CO2 emissions?” asks Quevedo.
“We are paying the social and environmental consequences to create a solution to climate change – a problem we haven’t created.”
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