'Savanna and the Mountain' Movie Screening

Join us for a special film night in central Brussels on December 12th! We'll be screening "Savanna and the Mountain," a powerful documentary about a community fighting to protect their land from lithium mining. Enjoy drinks, nibbles, and great conversation from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Space is limited to 100 seats, so book your spot now!

Seven years ago, the community of Covas do Barroso in Northern Portugal discovered that the British company Savannah Resources planned to build one of the largest open-pit Lithium mines in Europe next to their houses.

Faced with this imminent threat, the community decided to organize and expel Savannah from their lands. After several years of latent conflict, the Portuguese Government attributed a favourable environmental declaration to the project, a political decision that downplayed its most dire consequences. As a result, Savannah reinitiated prospecting activities and the community responded by blocking their access to the land.

The environmental declaration acknowledged the negative impacts on the population and Nature caused by noise, dust and vibrations from explosions and truck activity, the permanent destruction of underground water sources and diverting streams. It also said the project is incompatible with the United Nations’ recognition of the Barroso region as the sole Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) in Portugal (and one of the few in Europe). The GIAHS acknowledges a unique interaction between human populations and their environment that represents a true and concrete path to tackle climate change. Losing the GIAHS would have dire economic consequences for the region, but also for the local identity and the possibility of envisioning a sustainable future.

Savannah says these impacts can be mitigated through monetary compensation, but the local populations say no money can pay for the loss of their quality of life and the threat the project poses to their future.

This mine would be the first among several mining projects that intend to turn the Centre and North of Portugal into a supplier of lithium minerals for Electric Vehicles. They are part of a monolithic narrative advanced by the Portuguese Government, the European Union and mining companies where new Lithium mines are an inevitable path to decarbonization in the transport sector. Instead of promoting a social and environmentally just transition by fostering structural changes in current mobility patterns, these actors chose to serve the interests of the car and mining industries and to sacrifice new regions at the altar of profit-making. “Savanna and the Mountain” is inspired by the Covas do Barroso people’s refusal of this narrative and their resistance against a strong (but not unbeatable) enemy.