"Chile indigenous group asks regulators to suspend lithium miner SQM's permits", 13 september 2021

...Indigenous communities living around Chile's Atacama salt flat have asked authorities to suspend lithium miner SQM's operating permits or sharply reduce its operations until it submits an environmental compliance plan acceptable to regulators, according to a filing viewed by Reuters...

Authorities approved that plan in 2019 but reversed their decision in 2020, leaving the company to start again from scratch on a potentially tougher plan. That ongoing process has left the fragile environment of the desert salt flat in limbo and unprotected as SQM continues to operate, according to a letter from the Atacama Indigenous Council (CPA) submitted to regulators last week.

In the filing, the indigenous council said the ecosystem was in "constant danger" and called for the "temporary suspension" of SQM's environmental approvals or, where appropriate, "to reduce the extraction of brine and freshwater from the Salar de Atacama"...

SQM...told Reuters in a statement that it was moving forward with a new compliance plan and incorporating changes requested by the regulator to a draft document it submitted in October 2020...

Automakers, indigenous communities and activists, however, have increasingly raised concerns in recent years about the environmental impact of lithium production in Chile...