Saddleback Plantation Forestry Project (Revoked)

Saddleback Plantation Forestry Project (Revoked) is a plantation forestry project located approximately 15km northeast of Boddington and 130km southeast of Perth in Western Australia. It was registered in May 2018 and covers a project area of 758.56 hectares.

Plantation forestry projects sequester carbon by establishing and maintaining a new plantation forest for the commercial harvesting of wood products. The methodology ensures carbon is effectively stored by setting strict requirements for establishing the plantation, or converting a short-rotation plantation to a long-rotation one, while maintaining it for commercial harvest.

The Boddington region is situated on an undulating lateritic plateau and is well known for agriculture, sheep grazing, extensive forestry operations, and large-scale mining. The area typically experiences a Mediterranean climate with annual rainfall between 550 and 700 mm. The soils in this region generally consist of duplex soils with sandy clay gravels over medium clays, as well as pale deep sands.

The project proponent was Newmont Goldcorp Boddington Pty Ltd, with CO2 Australia Pty Ltd acting as the agent. Newmont operates the nearby Boddington gold and copper mine located within the Saddleback greenstone belt, which is one of Australia's largest producing gold mines. While the project was successfully contracted with the Commonwealth in June 2018 and the contract (CAC436762) was completed in June 2022, the project itself was officially revoked in November 2022 under section 30 of the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) Rule. Prior to its revocation, the nominated permanence period of 25 years had not yet commenced.