Salar d'Uyuni: the new lithium Eldorado?

The immense salt desert of Uyuni shelters an inexhaustible salt deposit, the size of the Ile-de-France region, 10m deep, in extreme climatic conditions of cold, lack of vegetation, and desolation. 

However, for a little over ten years, the region has been coveted by many large multinational groups. Indeed, in the composition of salt, sodium sulphate, carbonate, magnesium, potassium, boron and lithium are used: this element is essential for the manufacture of many electrical appliances, car batteries, and has a great future in international production.  

 It is estimated that the Salar de Uyuni, with its mine in San Cristobal, contains almost 40% of the world's lithium resources. Not losing the north, President Morales is raising the stakes, but with conditions: that it serves national industry, and that foreigners cannot get rich from the national wealth without giving anything in return. The population, for their part, has accepted to let the multinationals in under certain conditions, but is having difficulty adapting to the relocation of their village, for cultural, economic (work in the mines instead of agricultural work), social (mass entry of monetary relations into human relations) reasons, in short, a veritable earthquake.