Sturt Meadows Regeneration Project

Sturt Meadows Regeneration Project is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located at Sturt Meadows Station, approximately 42km north-west of Leonora in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. It was registered in May 2018 and covers an initial project area of 226,261 hectares, although a variation in February 2021 removed some areas from the project. The broader Leonora region is heavily defined by large pastoral leases used primarily for sheep and cattle grazing, alongside significant historic and modern mining operations.

The project operates under the Human-Induced Regeneration of a Permanent Even-Aged Native Forest-1.1 methodology. HIR projects aim to establish permanent native forests through assisted regeneration using in-situ seed sources, such as rootstock and lignotubers. The methodology requires that the land must have been cleared of vegetation and have had regrowth suppressed for at least 10 years prior to the project's commencement. At Sturt Meadows, this assisted regeneration is achieved by actively managing the timing and extent of livestock grazing to allow the native flora to naturally recover.

The local environment is classified as arid to semi-arid, experiencing highly variable and low annual rainfall averaging around 200 to 260 mm. Precipitation is largely driven by summer storms and remnant tropical cyclonic systems pushing down from the north. The landscape features open country, saltbush, cotton grass, white gums, and expansive mulga scrub. Soils in the Leonora region are typically poor and acidic, dominated by shallow red loams, sandy to sandy-loam surfaces over red-brown hardpans, and red deep sands with low organic carbon.

Historically, Sturt Meadows has a strong background in both pastoralism and ecological land recovery. In the 1990s, previous owners Lance and Norma Hurst conducted regeneration experiments on the property to assist with land recovery following the severe and devastating impacts of rabbits. The station was later purchased by the Axford family in 2000, and it eventually transitioned completely from sheep to cattle farming due to heavy stock predation by wild dogs. The carbon project has proven commercially viable, having successfully completed a fixed delivery carbon abatement contract (CAC333111) that was established in June 2018. In a tragic piece of local property history, Sturt Meadows Station was the site of a fatal plane crash in December 1988 when a chartered Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise went down shortly after takeoff from Leinster, claiming the lives of all 10 occupants.