Fingerboards Critical Minerals Project Update February 2023

Welcome to the new year.

Happy new year

2023 is shaping up to be a big year for critical minerals as we all face the great challenge to counteract climate change.

We are looking forward to keeping you all updated on our progress through the year delivering the Fingerboards Critical Minerals Project.

Our project is of global significance, underpinning the world’s efforts to fight climate change by supplying rare earth minerals to renewables industries.

Our plans for 2023 include:

• Developing a demonstration processing plant and excavation to update our environmental studies and progress our approvals.
• Working with and supporting Traditional Owners, local communities, and industries
• Attending local events to share updates and answer questions.

Change of Company name to Gippsland Critical Minerals

In November 2021, the then Minister for Planning released an assessment on the Fingerboards Project. That assessment identified a number of issues that needed further detail and work.
Over the past fourteen months, we have been working hard to address the issues raised in that assessment.

We have gone through this important process because we believe in this renewable energy project and the contribution it can make to reduce global carbon emissions as well as the local, state, and national economic and employment opportunities it will bring.

In recognition of the changes, we have made over this period to build in stronger environmental safeguards and world-leading rehabilitation practices, and to symbolise that it is now a new and better project, we are now giving the company a new identity: Gippsland Critical Minerals.

Fingerboards Project showcased in fourth edition of the Australian Critical Minerals Prospectus 2022

The Australian Minister for Trade and Tourism and Special Minister of State, Senator the Honourable Don Farrell, and the Australian Minister for Resources, the Honourable Madeline King, officially launched the fourth edition of the Australian Critical Minerals Prospectus 2022 in December 2022. The prospectus includes technical, commercial, and geological data to facilitate investment in projects for Australia’s identified critical minerals.

To date, the prospectus has received significant recognition among Australian and international corporations, investors and governments for the significant role Australia will play in the global net-zero transition and in diversifying critical minerals global supply chains for Australia and its allies.

The prospectus highlights a total of 55 investment-ready Australian critical minerals projects that have significant potential to address anticipated production shortfalls, build supply chain security, and help deliver progress on a net-zero future.

Please find the link to the full report here

Minerals for a better world

Critical minerals are an essential resource required for Australia’s transition to a cheaper, cleaner, and greener renewable energy future. These minerals are used in the production of magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines as well as batteries for electric vehicles and other sources of renewable energy as we transition away from fossil fuels.

With a huge global demand for renewable energy, comes the need for more critical rare minerals.
The Gippsland Critical Minerals project will extract critical rare minerals from the ground with world-leading, environmentally friendly processes and technology. And it will be done in a way that respects the land, sensitive ecosystems, our cultural heritage, and our community.

That’s why this project is so important environmentally and economically.

This project is of global significance, underpinning the world’s effort to fight climate change by supplying rare earth minerals to renewable industries.

Our approach for extracting these minerals will not only supply our nation and other countries with essential resources for renewable energy but will also create and sustain huge multigenerational community benefits over the next 20 plus years.

This includes the creation of +200 new sustained local jobs - ranging from entry level, semi-skilled, trades and university qualified - including fulltime, part time, casual and job-share employment opportunities for locals. We are committed to hiring locals wherever we can to provide sustained employment opportunities for current and future generations. We want to partner with education, employment and training services providers and governments – and to collaborate with our local suppliers and other large employers in other industry sectors in our region – on education and training initiatives to develop local workforces so we can all hire local as much as possible. Where there is no local available for one of our jobs, we will encourage East Gippslanders who have moved away from our region in the past for career opportunities to come home to work for us and to bring their family’s home. We will also incentivise other Victorians and Australians who take jobs with us to permanently relocate with their families to East Gippsland, to live locally, to participate and contribute locally as part of our community - not fly in, fly out, drive in, drive out.

We will also buy local wherever we can – partnering with local businesses to supply as many of the goods and services we need over the next 20 plus years. Where a product or service we need is not currently available locally, we want to engage with local businesses as their foundation customer to start up, scale up or build up their capabilities to supply to us and then to others in the region, elsewhere in Victoria and nationally.

We will be commissioning more detailed independent expert socioeconomic analysis and modelling on the impacts and benefits of our project on our local economy, for local jobs, for local businesses, for other industry sectors, and for our community. We will share the results when available.

But to do this right, it’s critical we respect the land, our cultural heritage, and our community. Central among Gippsland Critical Mineral’s values are those of respect and transparency, which is why this new project is going to be unlike any other in Australia.

Gippsland Critical Native Seed Facility

Over the past fourteen months we have continued to grow our stocks of native seeds at our Gippsland Critical Native Seed Facility in Bengworden. We are now at a stage where we are growing tens of thousands of plants representing a diverse range of locally rare grasses and wildflowers. This is all done so that high quality native seed is available for use when restoring threatened ecologies.

Dr Paul Gibson-Roy is our Manager of Ecological Restoration who specialises in cutting-edge research and has developed and successfully implemented restoration strategies for grassland and grassy woodland ecologies spanning two decades. Over that time, he has restored high-quality grasslands across eastern Australia in locations where they are locally rare or absent.

Our goal to restore nationally threatened Gippsland Redgum Grassy Woodland would represent the largest and most significant example of such restoration ever undertaken in Australia. The work being done at the Gippsland Critical Native Seed Facility represents a critical step in ensuring these important socioecological goals are achieved. Once established, our vision is to hand back these beautiful, rare ecologies to the East Gippsland community as a protected environmental assets and partner with conservation organisations to ensure these habitats are populated with their respective fauna.

Community Grants Program

Gippsland Critical Minerals is an active and supportive member of our local communities in East Gippsland.

Our Community Grants Program aims to support community initiatives that enhance the quality of life, heritage, recreation, and cultural opportunities and provide long lasting benefits to the wider community. Grant funding is available for projects within the Educational, Recreational, Environmental and Social aspects of the community in which we operate.

Our first round of grants for 2023 will open in March with approved grants awarded in June.

Application for our grants program can be made via our website.

For further information about the Fingerboards Project:

Free call: 1800 791 396
Email: contactus@gippslandcriticalminerals.com
Website: https://www.gippslandcriticalminerals.com
Facebook: facebook.com/gippslandcriticalmineralsfingerboards