Bolivia eyes lithium riches in spectacular salt desert

For years, the Salar de Uyuni has been a remote but popular tourist draw in southern Bolivia: the world's highest salt desert, whose blinding white expanse stretches to the horizon.

Now, though, the backpackers and locals who depend on their trade fear this spectacular and vast landscape will soon be threatened by multinational mining companies.

Because Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, is sitting on a bonanza in the Salar de Uyuni.

The desert contains 5.4 million tons of lithium, around half the world's total supply. The soft metal is already used extensively in batteries for mobile telephones and computers, and is a key element for the electric cars expected to be mass-produced tomorrow.

Mining groups Mitsubishi and Sumitomo of Japan, LG of South Korea and Bollore of France are all pressing to be allowed to get at the lithium.

Bolivia's socialist Bolivian government, though, is hesitating. It is demanding a big share of the profits and, even more importantly, that lithium technology plants be built from scratch in the country.

President Evo Morales's record of nationalizing foreign firms in the energy and telecommunications sectors is also giving the mining companies pause.

Officials have also said Bolivia could even mine the lithium itself, although it currently lacks the expertise and equipment to do so.

For tourists making the long voyage to see the flat, bone-white area -- described in the Lonely Planet guide as "one of South America's most awe-inspiring spectacles" -- there are concerns it will be ruined forever.

"I think they should leave it alone, just the way it is. They shouldn't be destroying nature like that," Travis Pitts, a 27-year-old US tourist, told AFP as he surveyed the desert around him from a hotel made of salt bricks.

Hadar Ozer, a 21-year-old Israeli tourist from one of a dozen four-wheel drive vehicles pulled up at the same spot, raved about how "amazing" the Salar de Uyuni was.

"We have salt in Israel also -- the Dead Sea. But here it's huge. You feel like you walk on the moon because it's all white and it's amazing," she said.

At another popular spot in the desert, a rock "island" covered with cactus, foreigners spilled out of the cars to take pictures. The total absence of features fools both eyes and cameras, so that objects near and far seem to be sitting on top of each other.

In a village on the periphery of the desert, almost all the locals draw their livelihood from selling souvenirs carved from salt or providing supplies to the tourists.

They, too, feared that mining would ravage the place.

"We don't know what will happen when there is lithium mining. I don't know. We still don't know what's going to happen, because there are some people who say there could be pollution," said Marta Flores, a 35-year-old woman selling salt trinkets.

The guides who drove their vehicles deep into the 11,000 square-kilometer (4,200-square-mile) desert were likewise concerned.

They have already seen their business affected, they said, because of international uncertainty generated by Morales's government, which has confrontational relations with the United States.

Several said they welcomed anything that would add prosperity to the region and to the country, but were skeptical that sufficient controls would be put in place to allow mining to co-exist with other activities in the desert, including tourism.

"It'll be productive for the region," said one guide, Juan Barcelona.

"But at the same time we'll see the ranches, the farms, all that polluted I think, because there will be a lot of mining. All the desert will be full of lithium mines."

In the meantime, those visiting the Salar de Uyuni are now wondering whether they will be the last to see this panorama in its pristine state.