Indigenous rights Indigenous communities living on the land are heavily opposed to the fracking activities taking place. They have not been asked for, and thus have not given, their free, prior and informed consent for the activities taking place on their lands. According to The Guardian, The Mapuche's cultural identity is being denied with the purpose of refusing community legal rights. Already at this stage of development, their ancestral lands are irreversibly damaged: water and air have been contaminated, plants have dried up, and new diseases have appeared.

• Intentional fire When Chevron started its operations in Vaca Muerta in 2013, it started fracking in the Loma Campana, an oil field of which the ownership was in dispute. In 2015, the government recognised that part of the land belongs to the Mapuche community. A spokeswoman for the Mapuche community explained how the oil companies entered the land without their permission in 2013. At that time, the indigenous community built an observation facility to keep track of the activities of oil and gas companies on their lands. A few months after building it, the facility was burned down in an intentional fire.

Public health In 2018, the Mapuche filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Total and Pan American Energy, accusing the companies of dumping toxic waste too close to the town of Añelo, indigenous lands and the region's principal river. The toxic waste is not being treated according to laws and therefore threatens human health. It contains high levels of hazardous elements that pose risks to reproduction and inhalation.

Workers safety In March 2019, a strike was called after the death of a worker in one accident and another that caused three injuries in Vaca Muerta.

Local disruptions

• Prices The food and housing prices in the Vaca Muerta region are tied to oil and gas workers' salaries, even though they only make up a minority of the population.
• Urban growth A so-called 'gold-rush' effect caused urban growth and unmanaged migration into the Vaca Muerta region. The population of Añelo city grew from 2,500 to more than 6,000 people in less than three years. Families with little resources end up on the outskirts of towns.
• Trafficking Due to unmanaged migration to the region, trafficking of women and drugs has increased. A report found that 67% of the women being trafficked are found in oil towns.

Climate change In order to align with the Paris Agreement and avoid climate disaster, oil and gas production needs to be phased out as soon as possible. The carbon emissions from existing oil and gas operations would already push the world beyond 1.5°C warming - thereby making it impossible to meet the demands of the Paris Agreement. The Argentinean gas reserves alone could already eat up 11.4% of the world's remaining budget required to keep global temperature rise to below 1.5º. If the Vaca Muerta megaproject would receive the investments and support needed for expansion, the cumulative emissions are expected to quadruple by 2050 - exceeding 8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in total. In order to make exports viable, extraction operations from Vaca Muerta would need to be doubled in the next five years, which would mean that the reserve is responsible for an export of more than 500,000 barrels of oil every day. This extraction would have environmental repercussions in the form of increased carbon dioxide emissions from the reserve and excessive emissions from transporting operations required to move the surplus barrels of oil.

Pollution Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the technology being used to develop unconventional hydrocarbon reservoires. Scientific research shows that the employment of fracking negatively impacts public health, water, soil and air. The technique makes use of several dangerous chemicals that are released during the process causing pollution. In the Vaca Muerta Shale Basin, fracking has caused leaks causing both air and water pollution.

Methane leaks It was found that methane leaks often occur during operations in Vaca Muerta. This potent greenhouse gas heats the planet 86 times more intensely than CO2 over a period of 20 years.

Oil spills Oil spills often occur in Vaca Muerta. Reportedly, an average of three oil spills per day took place between January 2018 and October 2018. In November 2018, Argentinean authorities suspended the license of the YPF/Schlumberger partnership that was operating at a shale well in the Vaca Muerta. The suspension followed a major well blow-out that contaminated 85 hectares of land with oil and drilling mud.