Rio Tinto: The Valley of the Jadar River - Vladimir Zivojinovic

Jadar River in western Serbia. The proposed site for the Europe’s biggest lithium mine is on the bank of the Korenita River, a tributary of the Jadar.

In July, Rio Tinto announced that it would invest $2.4bn in a project in the Jadar valley, in western Serbia, overlooked by the Cer and Gučevo mountains, building what it says will be Europe’s biggest lithium mine, and one of the world’s largest on a greenfield site.

The team had been looking for borates, used in fertiliser and building materials, but found something unexpected: borates and lithium in one mineral, a combination that would later be given the name jadarite, after the valley.

The project is gathering momentum. But anxious and angry campaigners, including the thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets of the Serbian cities of Loznica and Belgrade over recent months, say they are witnessing an unfolding disaster in the country’s “breadbasket”, responsible for around a fifth of total agricultural production, raising questions about the strange bedfellows being made in the maelstrom of the green revolution, and whether lessons have been learned about consumption and production that has made the transition to a decarbonised world so urgent.

Jadar River in western Serbia. The proposed site for the Europe’s biggest lithium mine is on the bank of the Korenita River, a tributary of the Jadar.

The mine will involve the relocation of 81 households, voluntary or otherwise, and the purchase of fields of 293 landowners. A brochure circulated among those affected stated that expropriation of homes and land would be a “last resort”.

About 30 homes have been bought in Petkovic’s village. Knowing their properties are destined to be destroyed, the owners rip out windows, doors and even roofs, leaving desolate scenes for those who have resisted Rio Tinto’s money or are yet to be offered anything. “Our neighbours did it so we had to,” said Živana Šakic, 67, who recently sold up

Beekeeper Vladan Jakovljevic, 60, from Stupinica, 2km from the mining zone, whose 400 hives produced three tonnes of acacia honey last year, said the area where his bees feed would be left “desolate.”

Ratko Ristic, a forestry professor has lobbied with others from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts against the Jadar mine, claiming “the possible benefits for the state of Serbia is between €7m to €30m a year, the possible income from advanced agricultural activity in the same area would be more than €80m a year without pollution or relocation”

In July, Rio Tinto announced that it would invest $2.4bn in a project in the Jadar valley, in western Serbia, overlooked by the Cer and Gučevo mountains, building what it says will be Europe’s biggest lithium mine, and one of the world’s largest on a greenfield site.

The mine will involve the relocation of 81 households, voluntary or otherwise, and the purchase of fields of 293 landowners. A brochure circulated among those affected stated that expropriation of homes and land would be a “last resort”.

Zlatko Kokanovic, 45, a vet who farms about 32 hectares with his brother, in which a five bronze age graves are located, said he had rejected attempts by Rio Tinto to lease the land for excavation. “They will never buy me off – they can only steal it from me,” the father of five said.

Close to the proposed works, lies the Paulje necropolis dated 1500-1000BC, the biggest central Balkans cemetery from the bronze age.

Rio Tinto has paid a local museum for an archaeological dig and hundreds of artefacts including pottery, jewellery, tools made of painted stone and bronze, aceramic spool and a three-legged altar have been uncovered so far.

A meeting of a group fighting the planned mine. Despite the promise of jobs, local people are worried about the destruction of their community and way of life.

The core mine will be on a site of just over 200 hectares on a bank of the Korenita River, a tributary of the Jadar, with further hundreds of hectares set aside for landfills of waste and new transport infrastructure. Excavation will take place underneath the two riverbeds where lithium has been identified at depths of 100 to 650 metres.