Ioneer Shares Promising Results in Growing Tiehm’s Buckwheat
On May 4, 2023 Ioneer CEO, Bernard Rowe, and the company’s full-time botanist, Florencia Peredo Ovalle, detailed the company’s latest efforts to protect and conserve Tiehm’s buckwheat at a groundbreaking event at the a greenhouse dedicated solely to research and conservation of the specie. The findings demonstrated success in growing new Tiehm’s buckwheat plants from seeds collected from the known populations.
We have taken considerable steps to protect the native Nevada plant and supported the listing of Tiehm’s buckwheat as an endangered species by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in December, 2022. To date we have contributed more than $1.5 million to ensure the plant’s long-term growth and success, and have budgeted an additional $1 million annually to the plant’s protection.
“Ioneer is committed to ensuring Tiehm’s buckwheat thrives while we working diligently to sustainably develop our Rhyolite Ridge Project, which will add a critical supply of lithium and boron to the U.S. electric vehicle supply chain to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change.” said Ioneer CEO, Bernard Rowe.
“Ioneer is pleased to share today’s propagation and growth findings. We look forward to building on our longstanding efforts in tending to Tiehm’s buckwheat and enhancing existing scientific understanding of this unique and special plant,” said Florencia Peredo Ovalle, Ioneer’s full-time botanist.
Besides our ongoing permitting work with federal agencies, we have also taken numerous voluntary measures to protect the plant and its habitat and minimize any potential impacts from the project’s development. In May 2020, we submitted a Project Plan of Operations to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which detailed the company’s specific actions to protect the air quality, biology, groundwater, soils, and rangeland around the Rhyolite Ridge facility. In 2022, we submitted a revised plan to BLM that included the creation of a quarter-mile radius to designate protected land for Tiehm’s buckwheat.
We remain highly confident that with our ongoing research and conservation efforts that Tiehm’s buckwheat and the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project can successfully co-exist.
