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 in the western Cape York Peninsula, approximately 70km south of the Aurukun township and 630km northwest of Cairns in Queensland. It was registered in January 2015 and covers an extensive 379,397.48 hectares of traditional homelands.

Savanna fire management projects in the high rainfall zone involve the strategic, planned burning of savanna areas during the early dry season to safely reduce fuel loads. This methodology minimizes the risk and severity of intense late dry season wildfires, thereby significantly avoiding and reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions.

The western Cape York region is heavily characterized by native bushland, bauxite mining operations, and pastoral activities such as cattle grazing. The area experiences a tropical savanna climate with high monsoonal rainfall during the wet season, while the soils are typically heavily weathered, nutrient-poor bauxitic earths, sandy loams, and lateritic soils.

Operated by Aak Puul Ngantam (APN Cape York), an Indigenous-led not-for-profit charity, this project engages the Wik and Kugu Traditional Owners as rangers to care for their ancestral homelands. The project initially included Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation as a co-participant, but it later transitioned to be managed solely by Aak Puul Ngantam. It successfully fulfilled a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC102439) with the Commonwealth for 60,000 ACCUs. By combining traditional ecological knowledge with modern techniques, such as aerial incendiary drops from helicopters, the project creates local jobs and protects local biodiversity. Revenue generated from the sale of carbon credits to buyers like the City of Melbourne, NAB, and felix mobile has been used to fund vital community infrastructure, such as communications towers, and to support Traditional Owners in returning to their homelands.