Under the world’s mountains, resources and sources of tension

From October 8 to 10, 2024, the Edytem laboratory at Université Savoie Mont Blanc and the Gresec laboratory at Université Grenoble Alpes are organizing a conference entitled Ressources du sous-sol en tension, protection et extraction dans les territoires de montagne, in partnership with Labex ITTEM.

The complexity of the issues at stake is clear from the outset. Is the proposed lithium mine in the Allier region good news or bad? This is the unbiased question posed by Violeta Ramirez, director of the film Transition sous tension, as she meets the inhabitants of the small village of Echassières, at the heart of the controversy.

” For some, the extraction of this fundamental mineral for electric mobility will be the key to the region’s demographic and economic survival, as well as an important step towards securing critical raw materials for the country. For others, the intensive exploitation of the subsoil will mark a headlong rush that will generate major environmental impacts, anachronistic at a time when planetary limits are being exceeded “, sums up the director.

Today, the scale of the mining challenge is matched by the need to protect the environment and landscapes. How best to reconcile the challenges of mining with those of landscape protection? This is the theme of the symposium.

From a copper mine in Chile to the gold mines of Senegal, not forgetting the extraction sites of Namibia and Mauritania, the exploration of mountainous subsoil raises many questions, arising from specific local contexts: can tourism contribute to the enhancement of landscapes weakened by these operations? At the same time, in countries steeped in colonial legacies, can the classification of sites to ensure their protection reinforce the logic of social exclusion, weakening communities whose living conditions are already precarious?

The imaginary conveyed by the exploited territories is at the heart of the trajectories that are taking shape. Disfiguring or aesthetic, imbued with desolation as well as excess, the Salars of the Atacama desert fascinate as much as they stupefy the visitor, symbol of virtuous transition or inequality between continents.

In Belo Horizonte (Brazil), a social mobilization is putting the brakes on a new mining intrusion in the name of a right to the landscape and horizon hitherto shaped by the exploitation of the soil. In France’s Cévennes region, a project involving artists and researchers explores life in “contaminated territory”, at a time when the energy and digital transition is putting the reopening of mines back at the heart of public debate.

Wherever the ground is being dug up to extract its resources, controversy and tension are growing, from a CO2 geological storage project in the Jurançon AOC wine appellation area in the Atlantic Pyrenees, to a diamond mine on a World Heritage archaeological site in South Africa.

” Beyond illustrating all these situations and the diversity of the issues they raise, the aim of the symposium is to bring together different scientific communities to consider the possible intersections of these issues and compare the experiences of mountain territories in the North and South,” explains Mélanie Duval, one of the event’s organizers.

Around a hundred participants of all nationalities, mainly from the academic world (teacher-researchers, researchers, post-docs and PhD students) will be taking part.

To find out more about the event and the program, visit the symposium website.

Find out more about Labex ITTEMresearch projects related to the symposium theme:

Géoextour – Geoparks between protection, enhancement and mining activities

Matea – Materials for the energy transition

Tesla – Energy trajectories and transition in the Alps and Andes

Streetcar – Energy transitions in the mountains

Transition sous tension – Investigation and documentary in the Massif Central