Yue Yu

Yue Yu comes from the largest grassland in China, Hulunbuir Grassland. Therefore, she has been dedicated to exploring the relationship between people and the environment. She studied human geography as an undergraduate and graduated with honours. She has participated in nature conservation projects such as Protect Chinese Pallas' Cat, Let Migratory Birds Fly, and Panda Husbandry Learner.

Yue Yu has conducted a series of explorations on climate change and the aesthetics of decolonization at the Royal College of Art. In particular, the environmental, social, and cultural costs of lithium resource extraction under the energy transition, and the environmental policies behind it, have been examined.

Yue's master's thesis was "Environmental Reality Claims: Linking Technology and Landscape". In it, Yue explores in detail how the process of abstracting the concept of environmental protection into scientific data harms multiple biotic and abiotic needs (e.g., indigenous religious cultures, especially in Chile) and weakens the emotional connection between people and the land. Project “Linking Technology and Landscape” was able to use environmental testing data from SQM (a prominent mining company in Chile) to refute their own environmental claims. The data gaps I have presented can be used to help the Chilean government (SMA, CPA) as evidence in an ongoing legal dispute with SQM ("SQM's $25 million environmental compliance plan for the Atacama salt flat"). 

Lithium resource extraction companies are scattered throughout the countries of the Lithium Triangle. In Chile, in order to speed up the exploitation of lithium by global companies and earn economic benefit, the Water Code was designed by the Pinochet regime (1973–1990), and water resources became privatized and tradable. For example, in the Atacama dearest, there are a large number of mineral companies. These companies constantly advertise that their mining process is 100% solar (e.g. SQM's website). Compared to the well-known coal mining, the impact of lithium mining is still unknown and therefore more acceptable to indigenous people.

At first, no one knew why the flamingo population began to slowly decline, only to complain that there weren't enough flamingo eggs for breakfast. In my research, it was found that an imbalance in the lagoons' ecosystem was the cause. The mining of lithium resources destroyed the salinity of the original water system, algae began to bloom, and an ecological imbalance occurred. Eventually, the ecological imbalance led to a small-scale species extinction that made it inevitable that the flamingos would lose their food, their feathers would no longer be bright, and they would have difficulty attracting mates and go extinct. But where does the salt in the water come from - no one knows the exact answer.

In my opinion, the flamingo reality claim is neither a political nor an economic or social issue. In my opinion, it is a spiritual issue, and it is called structural violence, or slow violence. Chilean law defines brine as a mineral resource and not a water resource. In this covert way, the law turns indigenous people's "right to clean air and pure water" into "the ability of the inhabitants to buy minerals".

Even though mineral companies have set up environmental monitoring systems (for example, SQM's monitoring system has over 286 monitoring sites), they sever the relationship between the data and the real landscape by cleverly presenting the data - the data does not represent the natural environment. When one sees lagoons with a salt concentration of 296g/L, one does not associate, them with green water, pale flamingo feathers, or a small-scale ecological extinction.

It is worth noting that the voices of indigenous people are ignored, whether the environment is represented by simple data, or whether environmental impacts are measured solely by Western science. Such a system of knowledge is a new form of colonialism. Whether it is the silent alteration of a natural ecology or a broken culture, it is driven by the epistemologies of the North, which are “based on the negation of the inhabitants and knowledge of the territories that are subjected to colonization and exploitation” (de Sousa Santos 2019).