The Pascua-Lama mining project, straddling the Chile-Argentina border in the Huasco Valley of the Andes, demonstrates the severe environmental and social conflicts that can arise from large-scale mining operations in ecologically sensitive areas. After more than two decades of legal challenges and public protests, Chile's First Environmental Court ordered the definitive closure of Canadian mining company Barrick's Chilean operations in September 2020, imposing a US$9.7 million fine for 33 violations including contaminating the vital Estrecho River without notifying local communities and inadequately evaluating impacts on Andean glaciers. The mine posed particular environmental risks due to its proximity to three glaciers and two rivers in the UNESCO San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve, with evidence showing that exploratory drilling had already disrupted groundwater filtration processes, allowing contaminated water to enter nearby rivers that are crucial water sources for Indigenous Diaguita communities and other local farmers in the arid Atacama Desert region. Despite this unprecedented legal victory for environmental defenders and Indigenous groups who had organised transnational resistance since the project's inception in 1994, Barrick continues to conduct investigatory drilling in the surrounding area.