Oudabunna Station Regeneration Project

The Oudabunna Station Regeneration Project is a large-scale Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located approximately 25km north-east of Paynes Find in the Shire of Yalgoo, Western Australia. Registered in May 2018, the project operates on Oudabunna Station, a pastoral lease covering over 92,000 hectares. The region is primarily dedicated to rangeland grazing, with the station historically running sheep and cattle.

The project utilizes the Human-Induced Regeneration methodology, which involves changing land management practices to allow suppressed native forests to regrow. Unlike tree planting projects, HIR relies on the existing soil seed bank and rootstock. For Oudabunna Station, the primary activity is the "management of the timing and extent of grazing." This typically involves installing new fencing and water infrastructure to control livestock movements, thereby reducing grazing pressure on young seedlings and allowing them to regenerate into permanent forest cover.

Environmentally, the site sits within Western Australia's Southern Rangelands, a semi-arid region characterized by erratic rainfall averaging between 230mm and 280mm annually. The landscape is dominated by red earth soils, sandplains, and siliceous hardpan, supporting vegetation types such as Mulga (Acacia aneura) and other native shrublands. These hardier species are well-suited to sequestering carbon in the harsh, dry climate, provided they are protected from overgrazing during their establishment phase.

The project is managed by the proponent William Terrence Cowley in partnership with Select Carbon (now a subsidiary of Shell Australia), a prominent carbon service provider in the region. Notable developments include a variation in July 2020 where specific areas were removed from the project, likely to ensure compliance with the methodology's strict "forest potential" requirements. Additionally, the project successfully completed a fixed delivery Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC219417) with the Clean Energy Regulator in early 2021, delivering 3,458 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).