The Goldfields Renewal Forest Regeneration (Revoked)

The Goldfields Renewal Forest Regeneration (Revoked) was an ambitious environmental planting project located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Spanning a massive 1,575,147 hectares, the project area stretched from near Kalgoorlie-Boulder northwards through Menzies towards Leonora. Registered in April 2016, the project was short-lived; it was voluntarily revoked in February 2018, and its carbon abatement contract was terminated.

The project operated under the Reforestation by Environmental or Mallee Plantings (FullCAM) methodology, which typically requires the active planting of native tree species (seeds or seedlings) at densities sufficient to achieve forest cover (usually over 200 stems per hectare). The sheer scale of this project, over 1.5 million hectares, was highly unusual for a planting methodology, which is capital-intensive compared to passive regeneration methods. The region is characterized by a semi-arid to arid climate with low rainfall and red earth or sandy loam soils. Establishing permanent planted forests on such a vast scale in this environment would have presented significant logistical and hydrological challenges.

A notable aspect of this project is the proponent's involvement in other land-use proposals. Goldfields Carbon Group Pty Ltd, the project proponent, was identified in parliamentary submissions as a joint participant in the "Azark Project," a proposal to establish a national nuclear waste facility in Leonora. Goldfields Carbon Group held the pastoral leases for the proposed site. The carbon project secured a contract for approximately 4 million Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) before it was terminated, suggesting the project was intended to be a major source of abatement before its revocation.