Darling River Eco Corridor 18 (Revoked)

Darling River Eco Corridor 18 (Revoked) is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located in the Cobar local government area of New South Wales, approximately 95 kilometres southwest of the township of Cobar. It was registered on July 10, 2015, and covers 14,686.38 hectares.

Human-Induced Regeneration projects involve restoring permanent native forests on land where vegetation was previously cleared and regrowth has been suppressed for at least 10 years. Instead of manually planting trees, landholders implement management changes to allow native vegetation to regenerate naturally from in-situ seed sources, rootstock, and lignotubers. For this project, standard activities involved managing the timing and extent of livestock grazing and humanely controlling feral animals, both of which act as agricultural suppressors to natural forest regeneration.

The Cobar region is known predominantly for pastoral rangeland operations, specifically the extensive grazing of sheep, cattle, and goats. The environment is classified as semi-arid, experiencing highly variable and unreliable rainfall that averages around 364mm annually. Soils in this bioregion are typically characterised by red earths (Kandosols) and red Chromosols on the plains and ridges, which have moderate to low agricultural capability and are highly susceptible to structural decline if not carefully managed.

An interesting fact about this project is that it was originally established on the Mulchara Park pastoral property, which was historically run by Lilliane Brady OAM, Cobar's renowned and longest-serving mayor. In May 2015, the project was officially renamed from the "Mulchara Park Human-Induced Regeneration Project" to Darling River Eco Corridor 18. It was managed by the proponent Terra Carbon Pty Limited, a subsidiary of GreenCollar, as part of a massive aggregation of over 150,000 hectares of projects aiming to create contiguous zones of protected habitat across western NSW. On January 22, 2020, this carbon project was voluntarily revoked under section 30 of the CFI Rule.