Warana Regeneration Project

Warana Regeneration Project is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located approximately 100km south of Charleville and 35km east of Wyandra, situated in the Paroo Shire local government area of South West Queensland. Registered in August 2015 by proponents Andrew Darcy Edwards and Lynette May Lee (with Climate Friendly Pty Ltd acting as the agent), the project spans a massive 13,861.44 hectares. The general land use in this outback region is extensive agriculture, with pastoralists historically utilizing the large semi-arid plains for beef cattle, sheep, and goat grazing.

The project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) (Human-Induced Regeneration of a Permanent Even-Aged Native Forest-1.1) Methodology. HIR projects earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by implementing new land management practices that allow native vegetation to regenerate on land where it was previously suppressed. For this project, the primary activities include managing the timing and extent of livestock grazing, and ceasing the mechanical or chemical destruction of regrowth. The methodology strictly requires that the regenerating native forest must have the potential to reach a minimum height of two metres and achieve at least 20% crown cover across the carbon estimation area.

Environmentally, the Paroo Shire and the surrounding Wyandra region fall within a semi-arid climate zone. The area experiences hot summers and low, highly variable annual rainfall, typically averaging between 250 and 300 mm. The natural landscape is dominated by resilient Mulga shrublands and Mitchell grass, supported by soils that range from sandy loams and red earths to texture-contrast sodosols and clay vertosols along the Warrego-Paroo catchments.

An interesting note about this specific project is its focus on assisted regeneration from in-situ seed sources, including native rootstock and lignotubers. The project area targets land that had been completely cleared of vegetation and where regrowth was continuously suppressed by livestock and machinery for at least 10 years prior to the project's commencement. In drought-prone regions like the Paroo Shire, pushing over native Mulga trees to feed cattle has historically been a common fallback practice. By securing a fixed delivery carbon abatement contract and committing to continuous forest regeneration, the Warana Regeneration Project not only sequesters carbon, having generated over 125,000 ACCUs to date, but also helps restore the natural biodiversity of the vulnerable Mulga lands.