Mario Orospe Hernández

Stay informed with Mario Orospe Hernández’s coverage and analysis for Fortune.

  • UYUNI, BOLIVIA – AUGUST 14: A worker hands a shovel to his colleague who is inside a salt recovery pool at the Llipi pilot Plant in the Uyuni Salt Flats on August 14, 2022 in Uyuni, Bolivia. The Uyuni Salt Flats, in the Potosi province, have the largest lithium reserves in the world. In 2008, former president Evo Morales nationalized the industry of lithium and then created the state-run company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB). Despite announcements and promises, extraction and export volumes never reached significant levels due to lack of investments and technology. Now the Bolivian government is working on strategic partnerships with foreign firms to boost the extraction of the so-called “white gold” or “petroleum of the 21st century”, key to produce batteries and electric vehicles. (Photo by Gaston Brito Miserocchi/Getty Images)Environment

    Bolivia is sitting on a goldmine of lithium but it’s setting up an ideological collision between modern society and indigenous religious views

    By Mario Orospe Hernández and The Conversation