Savanna Burning Investment Ready Project - Cape York Pilot Aurukun

Savanna Burning Investment Ready Project - Cape York Pilot Aurukun is a savanna fire management project located near Aurukun, approximately 630km northwest of Cairns on the Western Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. It was registered in January 2015 and covers roughly 379,397ha.

Savanna fire management projects involve the strategic and planned "cool" burning of savanna areas during the early dry season. This early intervention reduces fuel loads, preventing intensely destructive and hotter late dry season wildfires, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Western Cape York region features vast tracts of traditional Indigenous homelands, interspersed with conservation areas and some cattle grazing. The area experiences a tropical savanna climate, categorized as high rainfall due to its pronounced monsoonal wet season. Soils in the region are generally lateritic, bauxite-rich, and sandy loams.

Operated by the Indigenous-owned not-for-profit Aak Puul Ngantam (APN Cape York), the project engages local Wik and Kugu Traditional Owners as rangers to conduct burning activities, combining traditional ecological knowledge with modern technology like helicopters. The project successfully completed a fixed delivery contract of 60,000 ACCUs with the Commonwealth in May 2020. The income generated from carbon farming allows Traditional Owners to spend more time on their ancestral homelands, passing on cultural knowledge, while funding infrastructure like communication towers for the remote community.