Oudabunna Station Regeneration Project

The Oudabunna Station Regeneration Project is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located in the rangelands of Western Australia, approximately 20km northeast of the Paynes Find locality and 120km south of Mount Magnet. Registered in May 2018, the project initially covered a vast area of over 92,000 hectares within the Shire of Yalgoo. The region is predominantly defined by pastoral leases used for sheep and cattle grazing, as well as historic gold mining operations in the nearby fields.

This project operates under the Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) methodology, which differs from environmental planting. Instead of planting new trees, the project focuses on land management changes, specifically the management of grazing timing and extent, to allow existing native vegetation to regenerate. The goal is to suppress inhibitors like livestock or feral animals, enabling in-situ seed sources (rootstock and lignotubers) to grow into a permanent, even-aged native forest.

The environment at Oudabunna Station is characteristic of the Murchison bioregion, featuring a semi-arid climate with low and variable rainfall, typically averaging between 200mm and 250mm annually. The terrain is generally flat to undulating with soils consisting largely of red sandy earths and shallow loams over granite or greenstone. The native vegetation is dominated by Acacia shrublands (Mulga), which are resilient to drought but require careful management to recover from historical overgrazing.

The project is supported by Select Carbon, a major carbon service provider acquired by Shell Australia in 2020. Notably, the project secured a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC219417) with the Australian Government, which is listed as "Completed" with over 3,400 units of abatement sold. As is common with large-scale HIR projects, the project area has undergone variations to exclude non-compliant land, ensuring crediting is restricted to areas where forest regeneration is genuinely occurring.