CERRO RICO, TIERRA RICA

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Cerro Rico – an enormous conical mountain that towers over the city of Potosi, in Southwestern Bolivia – provided half of the world’s silver and sustained the Spanish Empire during colonial times. Most of the mineral wealth of the Cerro has been depleted, but today more than ten thousand miners still work on the slopes and tunnels of the mountain, looking for zinc, tin, lead, or a good vein of silver. Bolivia has recently discovered it contains half of the world’s lithium reserves in the desolate white plains of the Salar de Uyuni, also located in the Potosi region. But the lithium reserves are, for the moment, completely untapped. The parallel stories of the Cerro and the Salar speak of the past and the future of Bolivia, and help create a compelling mosaic of mining life on the high mountains of South America -making us wonder if the Andean nation will be able to finally harness the mineral resources for itself, its people, its own development.