Centralized mechanisms for fund distributions are very difficult to implement as it is hard to please everyone. We support these initiatives but we have seen that using them adequately is not an easy task. The funds need to be used in a very transparent manner and authorities need to make sure that they are investing in projects that support the wellbeing of communities. Peru, for instance, transfers 50 percent of the revenues it receives from the mining industry to surrounding communities but the government was not properly overseeing its use. This meant that municipal leaders were investing in the wrong type of projects and cases of corruption arose. These initiatives are meant to eliminate conflict between authorities and communities but they can sometimes end up causing more problems than they were meant to solve.

Lithium is the flavor of the month at the moment for several reasons, the most important being that people have not yet lost money on it in a prior market downcycle. This means investors are generally unburdened by caution when it comes to this metal and there are no bad expectations. Another factor is that the world is not short of lithium. The reason for the upsurge is that demand for lithium increased so quickly that the producers of the metal could not increase their productive capacity fast enough to meet demand, and the speculators conflated the price increase in lithium with a shortage of lithium. There is no shortage of lithium, rather a shortage of lithium processing capability, and the industry is working very hard to increase productive capacity, which will fix this problem.