Prof. Dr. Imre Krizmanić, Associate Professor, Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade.
He finished elementary school, Master's and doctoral studies in biology at the universities of Novi Sad and Belgrade.
He began his professional career as a teacher in elementary schools, and then worked as an expert associate and a pustos at the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia.
Since 2001, he has been teaching at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, at the Department of Morphology, Systematics and Phylogeny of Animals.
He is also active in the academic community as a member of the board of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and an associate of Matica Srpska.
According to my knowledge and analysis of lithium exploration and mining in the world, there has never been a case where lithium mining is planned, let alone carried out, in such a fertile valley. This is not entirely surprising, because all responsible and smart countries that think about their future have realized that fertile land is the most important resource they currently have, because according to world research, it has been observed that there has been a huge loss of fertile land on the entire planet, to the point that it is believed that if the use of artificial fertilizers were to be stopped now, food could be produced in the next period for only 40% of the population on planet Earth. All responsible countries then think about it and try to save their fertile land. We know that fertile land is very difficult and slow to regenerate. Is it possible to carry out lithium exploitation in the core in an environmentally friendly way? I have a big problem with that name, with that term. Ecology is a biological discipline that studies the mutual influences of living beings and living beings with the environment in which they live. It cannot be related to mining in any way. I would like the gentleman who coined the term to explain what he meant by that. And even the term sustainable mining is also very problematic, sustainable in relation to what? In relation to human society, mining can have both positive and negative effects. Most often it has both. When it comes to nature, mining has exclusively and only negative impacts. There is not a single mining that has contributed to the improvement of natural conditions. And if I have to give a concrete answer to this question, then I will use a thought from one of our greatest thinkers of all time, Mahatma Gandhi, who said that the earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's need, but not everyone's greed. I think that has been said quite enough.
Our study of the final report on the state of biodiversity in the Jadar area was conducted in 2020 in the summer months of June and July, for only six days, that is how much we were given to research. The Faculty of Biology, in cooperation with four other renowned research organizations in Serbia, such as the Institute for Biological Research Siniša Stanković, the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research, the Natural History Museum and the Faculty of Science in Niš. So, over 20 researchers worked for six days, reaching certain conclusions about the state of nature. We compiled a completed report, within which we also had to analyze the threatening factors. The processes that will occur during the operation of the mine will lead to the destruction of nature and we were obliged to propose measures for remediation and environmental protection. What should be emphasized here is that we did this on an area prescribed by the spatial plan of the special purpose area JADAR, on almost 30 thousand hectares. I emphasize this because it is stated in the Official Gazette in issue 26, 2020. Because both Rio Tinto and many other experts are dealing with completely wrong, deliberately distorted values of the areas to which the impact of the mine will apply, because when you reduce the area, then you will also reduce its impact. We may have time to come back to that a little later when we analyze what today, unfortunately, state institutions and how they distort the facts. As for our report, the report actually showed that in the entire area, during all phases of the mine's operation, and this is very important to emphasize, because today we have a state-supported distortion of facts, in a way, falsification of data, which allows Rio Tinto to divide its problematic project into three parts, thereby reducing its impact and ultimately leading to the fact that you will have three projects that are not unique, but in fact together have their own cumulative and synergistic effect. What they are doing is not a fish pate factory. Well, you have, you catch fish and go to the sea or the river, you catch fish and you have negative impacts on nature. Then, when you have transferred the fish to the factory, the impacts of fishing stop, the impacts of processing the fish into pate begin. Then, when we eat pate at home, then we throw the can in a plastic bag and throw it in the landfill, that is the third type of impact. These three impacts are not interconnected, but mining, or rather extracting ore from a mine, you will not extract it if you do not process it. If you process ore, you must first extract it, and then you have waste to dispose of. So, these are closely related processes that Rio Tinto is now trying, with very good intentions and permits from the state, from the Ministry of Primary Industries and the Institute for Nature Protection, to present as three independent projects that will not have anywhere near as disastrous impacts as they do when they are the only, so to speak, projects. However, Jadar is not the only one with such a problem. We have a large number of mining activities on the territory of Serbia, and I will mention only the most disastrous one, which, of course, we have had before us for more than 100 years, which is the Bor-Majdanpek basin. It is now expanding. After all, you cannot even get close to it. That area is inaccessible to you. And what about the area of research or obtaining any information about what is happening there? So, we have terribly big problems in that our entire country, or rather nature, is slowly turning into one interconnected mining area, or rather the opening of mines, and on the other hand the leaving of tailings, or mining waste. Mining, by the way, generally looks at nature only from two aspects. On the one hand, where are the raw materials that it can extract and process and make a profit. And on the other hand, it looks at nature as a place where it can hide its waste. If possible, in the cheapest way possible and to pick it up and go away and then leave the people who live there with a problem forever.
Well, we have already partly talked about that, so each such project has several phases that are connected. First, we have the phase of the beginning of the works, when the terrain is being prepared. In that, let's say, we talked about it, in that preparatory period, in fact, the majority of the initial phases of the destruction of nature will be done, and that is the destruction, that is, the destruction of habitats. Some habitats will be completely destroyed. If you look at the special purpose spatial plan that is supposed to describe all possible aspects of such a mine, of course, it did not do that, and that spatial plan was not well done either. Regardless of the fact that it was first abolished, then reinstated, reinstated exactly as it was, that is, insufficient, undeveloped and without adequate data on what the mine will mean. First and foremost, there will be massive destruction of habitats. Rio Tinto defends itself by saying that it will be an underground mine. Yes, it will be an underground mine, but you cannot do an underground mine or build an underground mine without causing great damage to a large area. Not only by concreted over one hectare of land. That is only part of it. The second part is that you will destroy the natural streams, again to go back to the railways, roads, etc. That's while you're preparing. Then the next part is when the exploitation of the ore and the mines begins. We talked about that too. You drop four tons of explosives down, you detonate it, then you extract that ore from it, you grind the ore, you pour it, they really like to say not 250, but 90 degrees, heated sulfuric acid, as if it's really fine there. Try it with sulfuric acid at 0 degrees, drop it on your skin and you'll see what the result is. So, it's a complete reversal of the thesis. Of course, 250 is worse than 90, but that doesn't mean it's 90. There you will get another type of threatening factors, which will be in completely unknown quantities for now, because you don't have a methodology with which they will work. They say that it's a completely new methodology. I'll have to stop here for a moment and make a digression. Rio Tinto, as a company that has been mining and exploring for 150 years, has never processed lithium anywhere. Last year, they bought a company that does it, but Rio Tinto itself has never done it. And one thing is, in addition to the fact that we lied to our people that we have the largest lithium reserves in the world. Even by European standards, we are only third, but regardless of that, the way in which this ore is processed has never been done before. No one in the world has ever processed jadarite, not Rio Tinto, nor any other mining company, which leads to a devastating realization that, of course, the people and inhabitants of Rađevina, but also all of us in that area, and I'm also looking at the inhabitants across the Drina, are really an experiment in vivo. We are a live experiment. No one has done it before, they don't know exactly what the consequences will be, and they will do it here. I will now paraphrase, and I will have to refer to it, that last year, when the Rio Tinto company visited Ljubova, or Rađevina, their executive director stated that when they make a mistake, meaning when Rio Tinto makes a mistake, they will learn from it and will not repeat that mistake. And I will repeat, he did not say if we make a mistake, he said when. The man knows very well what he is talking about. When do we make a mistake? And I'll paraphrase a dear colleague of mine, who gave a phenomenal explanation of what it looks like. So, if I go for brain surgery with a surgeon who says, 'Look friend, I'm going to operate on you now', I've never operated on a brain, but I'm going to operate on you now, and if I make a mistake, don't worry, I'll learn from that mistake and I won't repeat it again. Yes, but I was operated on incorrectly. So, to say such a sentence, in my opinion, is unacceptable. And that alone shows me what kind of mindset the people who run such a company have. It's nothing new. That company has a decades-long, terribly problematic history. Let's not dwell on that, and therefore, their hiding of data that is now in effect, that was also the case when we were involved. We were not allowed to go everywhere we wanted and where we needed to investigate, that was a special story. Of course, that was not done by Rio Tinto, that is, Rio Sava, their daughter company, but they have an intermediary towards us, who washes his hands and says, I don't know anything, I just have to drive you, and then I don't know where they drive us and so on. So, In that sense, all the threatening factors, to return now to your question, are to that extent visible on the one hand and we can assess them. But you have a huge foggy cloud in which all these threatening factors are that we do not yet know which ones they will be, because we do not know exactly by what methodology, by what principles, by what technique and at what speed of time they will do it. All of that has its own extremely, extremely strong impacts on the destruction of nature. We cannot even assume that now. We said, when all of that was discussed, but you should have done monitoring a long time ago, and we have a project for that. Before you start, you have to go to the field and accurately measure all the parameters of that nature. Because they say, nothing will happen, everything will be wonderful and wonderful. After us, they say it pleasantly, there will be a botanical garden here and the water that we will release after our projects. It will be cleaner than distilled water. It will be so clean that, before we release the recipients, we will have to make it a little dirty. Add a little salt to it, because probably, if they release that clean water into the Jad and Drina, these leeches will probably migrate, because they will be surprised at how clean the water they received will be. Of course, those are simply nice words. When I was talking to the managers of Rio Tinto, I said: 'I assume that what you are saying is supported by your analyses and studies that our certain state-owned companies have done.' Because you probably won't say if that is not the case. And where are those studies and where are those reports? Have you seen any of those studies? Where are they?
Well, how can I tell you, we biologists have only one way, and that is to fight through institutions and fight with the profession. In addition to the pressure being exerted to react, as I would say, institutionally, legally and to ask the ministry to cancel these decisions, the ministry has not done that yet. Pressure has also been exerted on international organizations that are extremely, how should I say, aggressive in their policy, especially Germany, to do this in our country. We must know that Germany has the largest reserves of lithium and in the most ecological sense, because it has them in the thermal mineral waters in the Rhine Valley, which are used by the thermal waters to heat the population. But there is lithium in that water, and when our experts asked their colleagues in Germany, why now they... they have already extracted the water from the ground. They just let it go through a small exchanger, which would extract the lithium, let the hot water go further, heated as it was heated. They usually return that water back into the ground. Why don't they do it? First, it is ecologically clean, there is no waste after that. Second, it is twice as cheap as some classic, let's say, dirty mining. Then the German colleagues said that all of that is true, however, they believe that in 40 years a different, how would I say, energy agenda will be promoted, where lithium will be of essential importance. And they will wait with their exploitation of lithium, then lithium will be a hundred times more expensive. By the way, lithium has now fallen in the past few years, you have probably had the opportunity to talk about this several dozen times, and this also raises the question of why there is so much insistence now. But of course, some, how would I say, major world economies, such as Germany, believe that it is permissible to mine and leave waste in a country like Serbia, in order for their economy to be sustainable and clean. Professor, once, speaking about the JADR project, you said something very plastic and interesting: You can make stew from aquarium fish, but stew can never be fish. What did you actually want to convey to that thought? In fact, I used a very great thought, also one of our significant thinkers from the beginning of the 21st century, who tragically and tragically ended his life, dr. Zoran Djindjic,who said that you can make fish soup out of an aquarium, fish soup will never be an aquarium again because the fish are cooked. And I can't find a more plastic expression or a better explanation of the situation we are in now. If we allow a lithium mine to open in Serbia, we will have cooked ourselves. We will never again be a clean and healthy Serbia.
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Naši gosti, nezavisni stručnjaci iz raznih naučnih oblasti, pružiće stručno i objektivno mišljenje o ovoj temi, koja ima dalekosežne posledice za našu prirodu, buduće generacije i zdravlje.
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