“All of us here, we are ready to lose our lives,” the 48-year farmer told The Associated Press. “They can shoot. That is the only way they can open the mine.”

At stake is a lush farming valley in western Serbia that holds one of Europe’s richest deposits of lithium, a precious metal that is used to make batteries for electric cars and is crucial for the global transition to green energy.

Whether there should be a mine in the valley or not has become one of the most contentious issues in the Balkan nation, triggering protests by thousands of people in a challenge to the populist President Aleksandar Vučić.

While the government insists the mine is an opportunity for economic development, critics say it would inflict irreparable pollution on the Jadar valley, along with underground water reserves, farm land and two small rivers that run through the valley.

‘We will die on this land’

Thousands are expected to show up for a major rally on Saturday in the capital Belgrade, calling for a law to ban lithium mining anywhere in Serbia.

Kokanovic will be there with his “Ne Damo Jadar,” or “We Won’t Give up Jadar” group.

“We are not interested in their profits. We were raised on this land and we will die on this land,” said Kokanović, who has five children. “This land is nobody’s property, it belongs to our children.”

Exploration of the lithium and boron deposits in the Jadar valley has been done by multinational Rio Tinto mining company for 20 years. The company has drafted plans to open a mine.

Throughout its 150-year history, Rio Tinto has faced accusations of corruption, environmental degradation and human rights abuses at its excavation sites, a history that has alarmed residents in Jadar and Serbia’s environmental protection groups.

Mass protests in 2021 and 2022 forced Serbia’s government to temporarily suspend the mine plan, only to revive it in July before signing a memorandum on “critical raw materials” with the EU in the presence of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

A climate solution

Dubravka Djedović Handanović, Serbia’s mining and energy minister, told the AP in an interview that the Jadar valley contains some 158 million tons of lithium, or about 17% of the overall estimated reserves on the European continent.

Jadar, she said, is “one of the best explored lithium sites in Europe and probably one of the best in the world” and could “put Serbia (as) the very top country not only in Europe but also worldwide” when it comes to fighting climate change.

Djedović Handanović’s signature is on the EU memorandum that envisages a “strategic partnership” on sustainable raw materials, battery supply chains and electric vehicles. The plan is to not only export raw material but also boost new technologies in Serbia.

Any potential excavations will meet the highest EU standards, said Handanović, promising “we will not do anything if that has such a negative impact that it will be detrimental.”

“In that case the project will not be developed,” she said, complaining of “misinformation” allegedly spread about the project.

In response, the government has set up a call center and a medical team to monitor any potential health risks, she said.

While it could push Serbia closer to the EU and help reduce the bloc’s dependency on China for lithium, critics argue that the risks of lithium mining still outweigh the benefits.

Serbia is a candidate nation for EU membership but it also has close ties with Russia and China. China owns the country’s biggest copper mine in eastern Serbia.

Development or exploitation?

Dragana Djordjević, research professor at Belgrade University and an environmental chemistry expert, is among a group of Serbian scholars who found in a study that the land in the Jadar valley had already been damaged during exploration.

Jadar, said Djordjević, is an agricultural area with underground waters and rivers that often flood and could carry any toxic material downstream. The mine is “a huge risk to the entire region,” she said.

Rio Tinto has said it will build an underground mine in line with EU safety standards. In a brief email to the AP, the company’s subsidiary in Serbia said they “favor public dialogue based on facts” and cited a separate draft environmental study that urged those concerned to lodge their comments.

Officials have said that the mine would not open before 2028. Vučić has described the current anti-lithium protests as political, orchestrated by unspecified foreign powers and directed against him and the government.

At the valley, properties owned by Rio Tinto Sava company are marked with “no trespassing” signs and sealed off by plastic tape. The mine would encompass some 500 acres of the sprawling valley, which is dotted with fields of corn and soybeans.

Vladan Jakovljević, who is in his 60s, lives in the village of Stupnica, in the hills overlooking the valley. He too won’t give up his way of life, his beehives and a healthy environment for his family.

If the mine opens, he claimed, “there would be no life for us.”

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AP journalist Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report.