In 2002, we formed a partnership with Victor Valley College to enlist their Horticulture Department's help in reestablishing Creosote Bush and other hard-to-grow species. To date, 100 plants, propagated in a campus greenhouse, have been transplanted successfully. This year, the transplant rate will grow to 500 plants. Click here to learn more.

The Mojave Desert is also home to the Desert Tortoise, classified as "vulnerable" by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ a leading catalogue of threatened species. Borax's Desert Tortoise Protection program includes annual employee training to promote better understanding of the species. Pets are forbidden on site, and housekeeping practices are enforced to keep ravens and coyotes - the tortoises' natural predators - off site. We erect barriers to keep tortoises from wandering into operational areas, and we train shovel, truck and dozer operators to check for tortoises before engaging equipment. Finally, we deed prime tortoise habitat to the government as part of a land exchange program. In the last decade, Borax has purchased and transferred more than 10,000 acres of land to the federal and state governments at a cost of more than US$5 million.

The following three charts show:

• Borax's total land holdings

  
  
  

• The percentage of that land on which we operate our mining, refining and distribution facilities. In addition to its operational sites in the California, France, Argentina, Holland and Spain, Borax has land holdings in Nevada, Oregon, Alabama and Texas.

  
  
  

• " The amount of disturbed land we have rehabilitated to date. In 2003, the company met its land rehabilitation target of 47 acres per year at its primary mine. All told, we have rehabilitated 289 acres, or five percent of the 5,659 acres disturbed by mining.