Serbia is home to one of the largest lithium deposits in the world, and Rio Tinto plans to exploit this key resource for battery production. However, as reported by the German magazine Spiegel, an unusual alliance of environmentalists and nationalists is organizing resistance against the project.
“On that sunny November day, the native village of beekeeper Stefan Jakovljević did not seem like a battlefield in the global raw materials conflict. It looked like a typical rural idyll. Jakovljević checks his beehives to see if the protection against intruders — wasps — is working. However, he fears that a completely different threat is approaching, one that he believes will change everything here. States and global corporations have discovered the small Jadar valley. In Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, and probably also in Moscow and Beijing, Jakovljević’s homeland has become a highly sought-after warehouse of raw materials,” writes Spiegel in an article titled “Treasures from the Jadar Valley,” published in its “Environment” column.
At a depth of up to 700 meters, lies a unique deposit of jadarite, an ore containing lithium in a concentration found nowhere else in the world. The deposit is estimated to contain around 158 million tons. With the growing need to store electricity from wind farms and solar panels, as well as mass-produce electric cars, vast amounts of this light metal are in high demand. One electric car battery requires approximately eight kilograms of lithium. The Jadar valley has enough lithium to produce 1.1 million electric car batteries annually.
The British-Australian company Rio Tinto is aiming to start exploiting the deposit as soon as possible. In July of the previous year, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić signed a strategic partnership agreement with the EU to support the project, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz standing proudly by his side.
However, as the Spiegel article notes, many Serbs are concerned about potential environmental damage, corruption, and the outflow of profits to foreign countries. Resistance to the project is growing both in the Jadar valley and in the capital, Belgrade. In addition to Stefan Jakovljević and his father Vladan, who are active in the civil movement “Ne damo Jadar” (We Will Not Give Up Jadar), other local residents are speaking out. Nebojša and Marijana Petković argue that the government is corrupt and determined to implement the project at any cost. “But it’s not just about money for us,” they explain.
Not everyone in the region is opposed to mining, though. Many locals have already sold their land to Rio Tinto.
Political scientist Vedran Džihić from the Institute for International Politics in Austria commented to Spiegel that recent polls show almost 60% of Serbs are against the project. Serbian society is quite conservative and nationalistic, and there is a unique phenomenon of right-wing environmentalists, for whom nature conservation and nationalism are intertwined.
Rio Tinto has reassured stakeholders that the lithium mining in the Jadar valley will be ecologically sustainable. However, many remain skeptical, and the environmental impacts remain an open question. Jakob Stausholm, CEO of Rio Tinto, when asked about the potential failure of the project, said: “We behave with respect and patience. Not threats, not pressures. At some point, Serbian society will have to make a decision.”
Supporters of Serbia’s partnership with the EU argue that one advantage is that the mining company would be required to comply with stricter European environmental standards.
Franciska Brantner, the president of the German Greens and former state secretary in the Ministry of Economy, who participated in the agreement with Serbia, claims that if the project goes forward as planned, it will be “by far the most environmentally friendly lithium mining project” so far. She added that the situation would look very different if Serbia were to partner with Chinese companies.
Spiegel points out that lithium projects also exist in Germany, but all three German projects are still searching for investors, while financing has already been secured in the Jadar valley.
Years after Rio Tinto’s initial test drilling in 2004, the question remains the same: can the Serbian government convince its people that it truly represents their interests? For activists in the Jadar Valley, however, there is only one possible outcome. “As long as we are here,” says Marijana Petković, “we will try to prevent the opening of the mine,” writes Spiegel, as reported by Deutsche Welle.
