… but no-one is saying yet who is behind it.
A new association has been created in Boticas – the municipality bristling with opposition to plans by British-based company Savannah Resources for open pit lithium mining – ostensibly to “act as a go-between in negotiations with the company that wants to exploit the lithium mine and ensure that the benefits of exploitation are shared with the community”. Anyone looking at the social media commentary of that community would be forgiven for being baffled: there is no indication that anyone is prepared to discuss “the benefits of exploitation” of lithium. Nor indeed is there a single sign to show anyone “accepts the project on principle”.
Thus, who could be behind this new association?
The answer that has come back is “the government and a former local politician”.
And there we have it: a news item put out by the government on state news agency Lusa to try and ease the way forwards in a situation that this far shows no sign of easing forwards at all. In fact, earlier this month, Bloco de Esquerda embraced this cause (click here).
And last week, CMTV (the television channel running with Correio da Manhã) carried a long feature on the struggle of the people of Boticas against the mining plans of British based company Savannah.
It was one of the first long segments carried by a channel that is viewed by nationals who otherwise may have had little contact with this burning issue. And thus, almost certainly, the association idea has been a form of trying to counter what will have been seen as ‘the negative publicity’.
Can it work? We will find out tomorrow (Wednesday) when the new association “will be publicly presented in Boticas, Vila Real district, where the Savannah company wants to explore the Barroso lithium mine”, says Lusa.
This will be interesting, to say the least, as the project is not just contested by local people, but by the current municipality itself, which almost certainly will not be agreeing with statements put out by this new association that the “project will help counteract the trend of population desertification” that the municipality and region are facing and “guarantee new economic opportunities for everyone.
“We will be the voice of those who believe in dialogue and development as ways of building a better region”, say the as yet unidentified.
The new association aims “to build constructive dialogue by serving as an interlocutor on behalf of the community in negotiations with the company responsible for the Covas do Barroso lithium project, which aims to exploit the natural wealth of Trás-os-Montes”, Lusa’s report continues.
As locals have said throughout this battle, the natural wealth of the area IS its UNESCO World Agricultural Heritage classification, its landscape, its rural way of life. It is not what may lie underneath all that, compromising everything above.
