US: Wildlife officials declare ‘Nevada wildflower’ as endangered species.

• In the United States, wildlife officials declared a Nevada wildflower endangered at the only place it’s known to exist – on a high-desert ridge where a lithium mine is planned to help meet the growing demand for electric car batteries.
• The Fish and Wildlife Service has formally listed Tiehm’s buckwheat and its accompanying area of 910 acres for the 6-inch-tall flower with yellow blooms. With an estimated remaining population of only about 16,000 plants, the service concluded that Tiehm’s buckwheat is on the brink of extinction.
• Ioneer, the Australian mining company that is planning to dig for lithium where the flower grows, said that it has developed a protection plan which will allow the plant and the project to coexist.
• Federal agencies are prohibited from approving any activity on federal lands that could destroy, modify or adversely affect any listed species’ critical habitat.

About Lithium

• Lithium gets its name from “lithos,” the Greek word for stone, because it is present in trace amounts in virtually all rocks. It might help mental disorders by increasing the activity of chemical messengers in the brain. Lithium might also be needed for other functions, like the development of blood cells.
• People use lithium supplements for alcohol use disorder, Alzheimer disease, depression, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support any of these uses.
• Lithium carbonate and lithium citrate are approved by the U.S. FDA as prescription drugs for bipolar disorder. These and other lithium drugs aren’t covered in this topic. Lithium supplements contain much lower doses of lithium than drugs.