Lithium is crucial for producing rechargeable batteries, like the ones used in electric cars. This makes it a coveted resource, as the world’s most developed countries seek to move away from fossil fuels.

In the Balkans, much of the lithium-related attention has focused on Serbia, where British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has targeted the Jadar Valley for its lithium deposits. The Jadar Valley is reported to have enough lithium to provide 90% of Europe’s supply. 

On July 19, 2024, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then-EU Energy Commissioner Maroš Šefčović signed a deal allowing EU states to access lithium mined in Serbia, pushing the project forward despite significant protest in Serbia about the extensive environmental damage lithium mining causes. 

Similar events are playing out in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. In October 2023, Arcore, a Swiss mining company working through a local subsidy, announced that its research confirmed large amounts of key raw materials such as lithium in the area around Lopare, in the northeastern part of the country. Arcore has a lithium-supply contract with a Canadian facility in Germany that produces lithium suitable for batteries. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus the Brčko district. Because mining and geological research are regulated at the entity level, and Lopare is in Republika Srpska, the relevant legislation sits with Republika Srpska. Shortly after Arcore’s announcement, Republika Srpska moved to amend its Law on Geological Research to allow for significantly more expansive and disruptive mining. A draft law amending the current geological research law was adopted on December 22, 2023.

The green transition often hinges on raw materials mined in highly damaging ways. In countries from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the U.S., a fundamental tension has risen. The dual challenge of moving away from fossil fuels while continuing to power modern economies at scale is pitted against the fact that extracting the required minerals can destroy the surrounding land and communities. 

No follow-through on public discussions

The legal changes that Republika Srpska’s National Assembly proposed smoothen the path for Arcore to continue and expand its geological exploitation. They allow a 50-fold increase in the amount of metallic mineral resources permitted to be extracted, all before an environmental impact assessment is completed. The legal changes also allow research permits to be obtained before all property rights are resolved and research to begin without consent of municipalities, cities and communities that stand to be most directly impacted. 

Broadly speaking, local communities have been excluded from the decision-making process for geological research and legal framework for geological exploration in Republika Srpska. Nonetheless, the assembly submitted these amendments for public discussions in January 2024. 

Roughly 500 people, attending as individuals and as part of environmental groups, came to the discussions, which were held in Prijedor, Banja Luka, Zvornik and Gacko. Some emphasized the importance of including local self-government units in the approval process for detailed geological research plans. Others advocated for maintaining the requirement that an environmental impact assessment is conducted before geological research can be started, as well as the need for clear definitions of what constitutes “invasive” and “non-invasive research,” terms that are in the amendments but are not clearly defined or understood. 

During a public discussion in Prijedor on January 25, 2024, Vladimir Malbašić, a professor at Prijedor’s Faculty of Mining, argued that local communities should be consulted about the research’s location and its potential impacts on the surrounding community. He also suggested a lower limit for the allowed amount for testing mineral resources’ quality and chemical-technological properties. 

Malbašić proposed that exceptions be allowed for higher quantities — up to 3,000 cubic meters — if the rights-holder provides additional justification, a detailed description and a report on the locations, facilities, quantities and timelines for conducting industrial tests and the results. Neither Malbašić’s nor any other citizens who attended these meetings’ concerns were taken into account, and all suggestions were ignored. 

Local protest

In February 2024, environmental associations, members of parliament and local government representatives submitted a declaration to Republika Srpska’s National Assembly. The declaration opposed the opening of lithium, boron, sodium, strontium, potassium mines and associated elements in Lopare municipality. 

Many residents oppose new geological exploration because it will occur near populated areas, by the Gnjica, Janja and the Drina and Sava river watersheds. Geological explorations are also near groundwater, risking contamination of wells and water supply systems. Additional concerns include landslides on Majevica and the exploitation field’s proximity to the Busija tourist center. 

Republika Srpska’s assembly did not adopt this joint declaration, allowing the Ministry of Energy and Mining to grant future concessions for exploitation of mineral resources in Lopare municipality.

This led the Eko Put environmental association in Bijeljina to launch a Facebook campaign, publicizing local opposition to mining on Majevica and Ozren. The association posted short videos of local residents of various ages and professional backgrounds explaining their opposition to the mining project and saying that they are threatened by environmental degradation from Republika Srpska and Serbia too, given Bijeljina’s border location.

In one, Slavica, a retired Russian language professor, notes that while the “area is rich in biodiversity and is an important agricultural region that feeds the entire country,” local inhabitants “are under tremendous pressure, unlike more developed and environmentally conscious nations that do not allow such activities on their territory.” 

In another, Jana, a high school student, says that Ugljevik, which is near a coal-fired power plant, knows well what pollution means. “Should the rest of Majevica wake up to the pollution of a mine?” she asks. A third features Rosa, a retired lawyer from Bijeljina, who predicts that “Only those who impose all this will benefit.” 

Slobodan, who says that drilling 300 meters from his home in Lopare caused his spring to dry up is featured in another. Zdenka, who makes a living raising livestock, growing fruit and keeping bees, has a similar message to the others. “These are currently healthy products, but once the lithium mine opens, there will be none left,” she says. “None of us wants a lithium mine.”

People living on Majevica echo related messages, as do environmental groups. 

“During geological research, water appeared in several drilling sites. The contractors did not report this to the authorities, nor did they call water inspectors, despite being obligated to do so under the Republika Srpska Water Law,” Andrijana Pekić from the Guardians of Majevica association told K2.0. “A few months later, in the vicinity of those drilling sites, two households experienced a loss of water from wells that had been used for decades. In one household, the well was contaminated: heavy metals were found after analysis. To this day, unusable water flows from those wells, drying up surrounding plants and trees.” 

People who live around Majevica have struggled with mine-related pollution for years. “The local population does not need a new one, which does not exist anywhere in the world in populated areas and is proven to devastate nature wherever it is located,” said Pekić.

Zoran Poljašević, an environmental protection engineer from Ozren, says that a key problem in the legislation is that it ignores the environmental harms geological research may cause. He warns that amendments to the law on geological research remove the possibility for citizen participation in environmental decision-making, a violation of the Aarhus Convention. The convention was ratified by Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2008 and guarantees “environmental democracy” and the right to live in a healthy environment. 

“Despite the mentioned legal changes that complicate our situation in Ozren, we will continue to highlight these facts to both institutions and the population,” Poljašević told K2.0. “Focusing on the potential for lasting harm to the environment during geological research for nickel and cobalt deposits, as well as heavy, carcinogenic metals, will sooner or later lead to the halting of these projects.” 

For Poljašević, stopping the project in Ozren is the only logical solution.

In July 2024, the Center for Environment in Banja Luka — a nonprofit devoted to environmental advocacy — challenged disputed provisions of the law, drafted by the Ministry of Energy and Mining, saying that the provisions clash with fundamental principles and rights guaranteed by Republika Srpska’s constitution. 

The center argues that proceeding with geological research without respecting basic principles of local democracy, prior impact assessments for nearly all geological research and clearly defined overall allowable quantities of metallic mineral resources that can be exempted during research is unconstitutional.

“[The amendments] infringe upon the fundamental principles of the constitutional legal order and guaranteed rights, including the principle of local democracy, the right of every person to a healthy environment and the duty to protect and improve the quality of the environment,” said Redžib Skomorac, a legal advisor at the Center for Environment, in a press release. “Decisions on issues that are essentially local in nature are now centralized in one ministry. The problem is even greater because this ministry can make the final decision on approving geological research despite existing obstacles in environmental protection regulations, for whose interpretation and application another ministry is responsible.”

On January 20, 2025, a petition with 6,057 signatures from citizens in Bijeljina, Lopare, Ugljevik and Zvornik, was submitted to Republika Srpska’s National Assembly. It asked the assembly to stop granting concessions for geological exploration around Majevica and classify the area as a nature park. One of the petition’s organizers calls on the assembly to ensure that the area is “never a lithium mine in the hands of foreigners.” 

In one of videos in the Eko Put organization’s Facebook campaign, Dragana, a seamstress from Ugljevik, says “No sane person would agree to the mining.” Similar sentiments are being expressed in countries across the world, as global imperatives to mine materials critical for the green transition threaten the lives of people who are least responsible for the climate crisis in the first place. As Dragana says, “We have no other country to go to. It is our duty to fight, to stay here and to protect this beauty given to us by God. No mines, and no more discussion about it.”

Feature image: K2.0.

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