An Australian company has launched a rare earths mining project just outside Joshua Tree National Park in critical desert tortoise habitat, an area the company’s director refers to as an “emerging heavy rare earth district.”

The company, Dateline Resources Ltd., says that historical sampling of the area in the Pinto Mountains south of Twentynine Palms found enrichment in elements key to powering electric vehicles, wind turbines and defense systems.

The project is in its early stages, and it’s unclear whether further testing will confirm the presence of rare earth elements across a broad enough area to warrant extracting them. The site is roughly 100 miles southwest of the nation’s only fully functional rare earths mine — Mountain Pass operated by MP Materials, in which the U.S. Department of Defense holds a 15% stake.

If mining were to go ahead here, visitors would likely be able to see the activity while driving into the park, Wilcox pointed out. “It just emphasizes this company’s blatant disregard for our nation’s crown jewels,” he (Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Assn) said.