Wongalara Carbon Abatement

Wongalara Carbon Abatement is a Savanna Fire Management project located at the Wongalara Sanctuary, approximately 120km south-east of Kakadu National Park in the Roper Gulf region of the Northern Territory. It was registered in February 2016 and covers an expansive area of 192,542 hectares.

Savanna fire management projects involve the strategic and planned burning of savanna areas during the early dry season. This prescribed burning standard requires creating a patchwork of fuel loads of different ages, which breaks up the landscape to reduce the risk and severity of late dry season wildfires and limits the spread of uncontrolled fires later in the year.

The surrounding region on the southern edge of Arnhem Land is primarily utilised for conservation reserves, Aboriginal land trusts, and pastoral cattle grazing. The environment experiences a tropical monsoon climate with distinct wet and dry seasons, placing it within a high rainfall classification for northern savannas. The local landscape features a diverse range of soil types and topographies, including sandstone plateaus and escarpments, spinifex-covered rocky ranges, low open eucalyptus woodlands, and fertile riverine soils along the Wilton River which flows directly through the property.

An interesting note about this project is that it is managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC), which acquired the property in 2007 following a public fundraising campaign. In addition to savanna burning, AWC has constructed a massive exclusion fence to create a 100,000-hectare feral herbivore-free zone. This comprehensive ecosystem management approach protects significant Top End wildlife, providing a haven for threatened and declining species such as the Gouldian Finch, Spectacled Hare-wallaby, and the Kakadu Dunnart. Furthermore, the carbon project has proven commercially successful, completing a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC219164) for the delivery of 5,000 units to the Commonwealth in December 2017.