...
Overcast clouds, 25.48°C
"Our territory is very beautiful and connected to our ancestors; our grandparents and great-grandparents also lived in the basin, and we have inherited from them a culture and tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. We—the Communities—live in them and they are part of our family.
We do not lose hope that we are going to win... and that our Mother Earth will be the real justice. As I always say, we are addicted to crisis. All who drive lithium battery cars say that they will save the world, but I don't think so. Each should ask themselves… how, where the material comes from, what it provokes when it is mined, this mineral, in the zone where it is found, until they reach their community in another country. How many violations of rights occur along its path? We are thinking… how to transmit a means of communication so everyone can ask this themselves.”
—Verónica Chávez, member of the Tres Pozos Sanctuary Community.
The Andean salt flats in Argentina hold the world’s third-largest lithium reserves. Currently, China, Australia, the US, and other countries that aspire for global dominance are locked in a race to mine this valuable earth mineral to power the so-called ‘green energy transition’. Lithium is in electric vehicles, mobile phones, solar panels, and other battery-storing energy systems, fueling monopolies on digital clouds and its hoarding of memory. However, lithium mining comes at a deadly cost for the communities in Jujuy, Argentina, an arid region that may see as little as 300 millimetres of annual rainfall. For every tonne of lithium carbonate mined, 2 million litres of fresh groundwater is evaporated. Critical to life on land they have stewarded for millennia, the communities’ message is clear: “We no longer want to be a sacrifice zone.”
In solidarity with the Communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc, Fairclouds serves as a vehicle through which a cosmovision of slower, situated activism can emerge beyond private property, honouring Pachamama (Mother Earth). Faced with violent repression by local governance and police, multinational corporations and power-wielding individuals, acts of media green-washing, and a national government that has repealed historic laws for the protection of Indigenous peoples in Argentina. Fairclouds provides a direct channel for communities to share their resistance to neo-colonial exploitation with a community of contributors in solidarity across the world, towards another art of living on the land.
As a Cloudsteward, you are invited to bring to life an economic model grounded in principles of stewardship and collective value generation to support the Communities’ stewardship of their land. In setting up Fairclouds, we used the principles of fair value distribution that are the heart of an approach to economic exchange called partial common ownership.
What do you see in the clouds? Enter into a cloudscape above the Salinas Grandes in Jujuy, Argentina. Become a Cloudsteward and reveal the hidden ecologies within the clouds, imagined by a transnational group of contributors.
How does it work?
- Explore the cloudscape with your cursor to discover the hidden drawings.
- Click on a cloud to reveal the stewardship options and become a Cloudsteward.
- As you return to a cloud, new drawings may appear.
- You are also invited to contribute your own cloud drawings for others to steward.
Become a Cloudsteward
- Purchase a Cloudsteward licence for one or more clouds that span the sky above the Salinas Grandes, and in doing so, actively support the Indigenous Communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc in their own stewardship efforts to protect their ancestral lands and water from lithium extraction.
During your stewardship as a Cloudsteward
- You will receive the digital files for the drawing(s) associated with your clouds(s) and can use, exhibit, and reproduce this/these drawing(s) in line with the Cloudsteward Licence.
- You will join a transnational alliance of Cloudstewards who will receive periodic updates from the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc and be invited to affiliated events.
Cloudsteward renewal
- Like clouds, your Cloudsteward Licence is temporary. It can be renewed at the end of the one-year cycle.
- At the beginning of a new cycle, you then have two options:
- If a new Cloudsteward takes over your licence, you will receive 50% of the sale price in Cloudsteward Credits that can be applied towards other Cloudsteward Licences.
Plural Cloudstewardship
- At any time, every cloud may have many Cloudstewards.
- However, each additional Cloudsteward must pay a higher price than the prior Cloudstewards in order to join them. The other Cloudstewards then receive corresponding Cloudsteward Credits that they can use toward additional Cloudsteward Licences. This system acknowledges the fact that they were there before you, and that you came to that Cloud without their permission. It is a balance between openness and respect for those who came before. It is based on the power-sharing ideas of quadratic voting and partial common ownership.
- All the payments support the Salinas Grandes Communities, per below.
Where do the funds go?
- 90% of the money will go to the Argentinian NGO, FARN, who represent the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc. The remaining 10% will go towards improving and maintaining Fairclouds.
UP THE WIPHALAS, DOWN THE REFORM!!
Dear traveler, today you are passing through this route, in which we are constantly demonstrating, providing information and making our situation in our territory known. So we ask for a little bit of...
Read more
