Waverley Downs Regeneration Project

The Waverley Downs Regeneration Project is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located on the remote Waverley Downs pastoral station in Far West New South Wales. Situated approximately 60km west of the border town of Hungerford and 100km northwest of Wanaaring, the property lies within the arid "Corner Country" region near the Queensland border. Registered in August 2015, the project covers a vast area of 51,255 hectares. The surrounding region is traditionally used for extensive grazing of sheep and cattle, characterized by its isolation and vast scale.

This project operates under the Human-Induced Regeneration methodology, which awards carbon credits for regenerating native forests on land where vegetation was previously suppressed. Standard activities for this project type involve managing the timing and extent of grazing (often through exclusion fencing or rotational strategies) and ceasing mechanical clearing. This allows native species, such as Mulga (Acacia aneura) and Bimble Box, to regenerate from in-situ seed sources like rootstock and lignotubers.

The environmental setting of Waverley Downs is typical of the Mulga Lands bioregion. It features a semi-arid to arid climate with low, variable rainfall (averaging 200–300mm annually). The terrain is generally flat with red earth soils, sandy loams, and grey clay pans found in gilgais or channel country areas. The vegetation is dominated by mulga shrublands and native grasses like Mitchell and Wiregrass, which are resilient to the harsh, dry conditions.

An interesting aspect of this project is its location in a historic pastoral district; records from the 1940s list Waverley Downs as a significant station in the Hungerford district, running over 12,000 sheep at the time. It is important to distinguish this property from "Waverley Station" in Scone or the "Waverley Downs Merino Stud" near Delungra, which are unrelated entities in eastern NSW. In 2023, the project varied its methodology to the more recent Compilation No. 3 to align with updated regulatory standards.