Longdowns Regeneration Project

Longdowns Regeneration Project is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located in the Bourke Shire of New South Wales, approximately 40 kilometers southeast of the town of Bourke. Registered in July 2015, the project covers a substantial area of 30,025 hectares in a region traditionally dedicated to grazing sheep and cattle. The project area extends eastward towards Brewarrina, encompassing landscape features typical of the Western Division of NSW.

The project operates under the Human-Induced Regeneration methodology, which facilitates the restoration of native forests on land where vegetation has been suppressed for at least 10 years. By ceasing mechanical or chemical clearing and actively managing the timing and extent of grazing, as well as controlling feral animals, the project allows native vegetation to regenerate from in-situ seed sources such as rootstock and lignotubers. The goal is to establish a permanent even-aged native forest that sequesters carbon over a 25-year crediting period.

The Bourke region is defined by a semi-arid climate with high summer temperatures and an average annual rainfall of approximately 350mm. The terrain consists largely of red earth soils and grey clays found on floodplains, which support the regeneration of native acacia and eucalypt woodlands when grazing pressure is reduced.

Notably, the Longdowns Regeneration Project has been utilized as an offset provider for the NSW Government's Vehicle Emissions Offset Scheme (VEOS), allowing vehicle owners to voluntarily offset their emissions during registration. Additionally, the project has supplied offsets to local councils like the Mornington Peninsula Shire for their carbon neutral certification. In December 2022, the project was divided under Section 77A of the CFI Act, a regulatory mechanism that allows a project to be split into multiple distinct projects, often to facilitate property sales or administrative restructuring.