Maloneras focuses on the struggle of Aurora Choque, an indigenous woman in Jujuy, northern Argentina, to protect her land from exploitation and destruction by lithium mining. The project highlights the crucial importance of water for life in an extremely dry area and the key role indigenous communities play in preserving natural resources, all within the context of a worsening human rights situation in Argentina.

The Andean salt flats of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia hold approximately 70% of world reserves of lithium. Companies from across Europe, United States and China have made efforts to secure the natural resource for lithium-ion batteries, needed to secure the transition to a carbon-free world. In recent years, Argentina, part of what has become known as the lithium triangle, emerged as a major supplier of lithium, which has led to a significant drop in levels of groundwater, pollution and environmental damage affecting humans and animals. Indigenous communities in Jujuy have been at the forefront of the struggle against the depletion of the resource from their traditional/ancestral land, which endangers their culture, cosmovision and economic basis.

Since the election of the new government in Argentina led by President Milei in 2023, the human rights situation of the indigenous communities affected by the lithium extraction has dramatically worsened. Laws and decrees have been enacted that criminalize the right to protest and resist the exploitation and destruction of their land, culture, cosmovision and heritage.

“When I saw them drilling back there, it was like they were drilling into me. Mining is for a short time, and then everything will be a desert, the waters will dry, and what will we do?” Aurora Choque