COVAS DO BARROSO, Portugal For centuries, Aida Fernandes family has lived in this village nestled in the rugged mountains that crown the northern border with Spain, with generation after generation grazing cattle and growing grapes in lush green fields.

Then, in 2010, a wildfire one of the growing number of blazes scorching this part of Europe as the climate changes engulfed the verdant foothills encircling Fernandes ancient home.

The rustic stone houses and towering persimmon trees of Fernandes remote town of about 100 people remained intact, but there was plenty of damage to the surrounding area. With time, though, the wounded landscape healed. Dense stands of maritime pines regrew to cover the charred bare ridges. Enough Erica lusitanica, or Portuguese heath, sprouted between the skinny evergreens trunks to make the ground look like brushstrokes in an impressionist painting. Wild fruit trees returned, bearing juicy berries with red skin and yellow meat that locals call medronheiros and ferment into alcohol. The culture, too, showed signs of a rebound, as the regions unique farming traditions and indigenous livestock breeds made it one of the only places in Europe to win a spot on a worldwide list of agricultural heritage systems worthy of conservation.

But around that same time, Fernandes registered a new threat to her land one that, while slower-moving, could change things forever. It came not from a what but a whom: an invasion, with huge ramifications for Europes climate goals and Portugals political stability.

With the help of the national government, the lithium mining industry promises to transform this forgotten region into the European Unions largest operation for digging the metal prized for its role in electric vehicles out of the earth. More prospectors were arriving by the month to bore cylindrical holes into rock and take samples. As time went on, Fernandes accused workers of trespassing on land where they had no legal rights, an allegation the mining company denied.

Seemingly overnight, Fernandes, 45, became the de facto leader of the resistance, a self-described David leading a ragtag coalition of farmers, environmentalists and itinerant hippies. They were up against the twin Goliaths of an international corporation and the Portuguese state, with backing from at least a handful of villagers who believed mining would mean a financial boost for themselves and their region.

One Friday in November, Fernandes new responsibility an exhausting third job on top of farming and raising three kids meant going on patrol to check whether the prospectors were advancing. Peering at the horizon through the dusty windshield of her red Toyota pickup, she spotted a single plume of white smoke. Fernandes let out something between a gasp and a sigh.

Theyre here, she said.

Roughly 200 feet down the ridge, a crew of three hard-hatted workers made use of the waning daylight to dig a little deeper into the exposed rock, casting up a continuous puff of diesel exhaust and dust.

Men had been showing up on lands owned collectively by the villagers for months. Fernandes and her cohort tried blocking the road when they saw them coming, but this afternoon she was too late. More workers were coming more often, with armed police not far behind an intimidating sight for residents who lived through the fascist dictatorship that ruled Portugal from the Great Depression until the 1970s.

The industry is in a Catch-22. Lithium is the main component in the power packs that propel electric vehicles and store energy from weather-dependent renewables, like wind and solar, for later use. Investors hoping to cash in on the transition from fossil fuels to batteries and electricity call it white gold.

Consumers in rich parts of Europe and North America demand products made with metals unearthed with minimal environmental damage, but have literally stood in the way of mines in countries with some of the highest regulatory standards in the world. Even under optimistic scenarios for how much metal recycling can recirculate into the battery supply chain, analysts say both continents need to mine more raw lithium and officials from Washington to Brussels are dangling new incentives for companies to do so. Yet Savannah Resources, the mining company pursuing the lithium under Covas do Barroso, finds itself fending off villagers lawsuits in local court in Portugal.

New legal cases coupled with the increased stream of negative media coverage in the second half of the year are a cause for ongoing frustration, Matthew King, Savannah Resources chairman, wrote in a year-end letter to investors in December. However, we will continue to communicate the positive benefits of our project for the local community, Portugal and indeed Europe as a whole, and our efforts to minimise any and all negative impacts it may have.