The Colla Indigenous people claim Rio Tinto’s plans to extract the key mineral will harm fragile ecosystems and livelihoods

Miriam Rivera Bordones tends her goats in a dusty paddock in the russet mountains of Chile’s Atacama desert. She also keeps chickens and has planted quince and peach trees and grapevines, which are watered by a stream winding down the hills towards the Indigenous community of Copiapó.

But now the huge British-Australian mining multinational Rio Tinto has signed a deal to extract lithium, the “white gold” of the energy transition, from a salt flat farther up the mountains, and she fears the project could affect the water sources of several communities in the area.