Protests against Planned Lithium Project To Be Held Across Serbia

Photo: Pavle Peric

Rallies protesting the announced lithium mining project in the Jadar region, near Serbia’s western town of Loznica, organized by environmental organizations, are scheduled to take place in the evening on Aug. 6 in four towns in Serbia and in at least 19 more until Saturday, Aug. 10.

Protests have so far been held in 28 towns across Serbia, with some attracting more than 30 percent of the local population, according to website for publishing records of public gatherings Arhiva Javnih Skupova.

Protestors at all of the rallies have demanded from the authorities to pass a law prohibiting for an indefinite period geological surveys and lithium and boron exploration in Serbia.

Environmental organizations have said that the government has to adopt such law by Aug. 10, when a mass rally is set to take place in Belgrade.

Zlatko Kokanovic, the leader of We Won’t Give Jadar Up, an association from Gornje Nedeljice, a village near Loznica where the lithium project is planned for execution, has told BETA that the upcoming rally in Belgrade would not only voice opposition against the lithium mining project in the Jadar region, but also aims to prevent the authorities from allowing foreign companies to continue opening mines across Serbia.

Kokanovic, however, said he was not expecting adoption of the act prohibiting indefinitely surveys and lithium exploitation in Serbia by Aug. 10.

Kokanovic stressed that environmental organizations were neither receiving funds from abroad nor working for the Serbian government.