Wilmot Cattle Co. Carbon Project (Revoked)

The Wilmot Cattle Co. Carbon Project (Revoked) was a soil carbon sequestration project located approximately 20km northeast of Gunnedah in the Liverpool Plains region of New South Wales. Registered in September 2020, the project covered an area of roughly 1,481 hectares, which corresponds with Wilmot Cattle Co's "Morocco" property. The region is renowned for its fertile agricultural land, supporting a mix of extensive cropping and grazing operations.

The project operated under the 2018 Soil Carbon methodology, which credits landholders for increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) levels through changes in land management. Specific activities for this project included altering stocking rates to implement time-controlled grazing, rejuvenating pastures, and converting to reduced tillage practices. Under this method, proponents must measure baseline carbon levels and re-sample periodically; credits are issued based on the measured increase in carbon stocks over time.

Environmentally, the Gunnedah region is characterized by a sub-humid climate with a summer-dominant average rainfall of approximately 620mm. The area is famous for its productive soils, predominantly Vertosols (black cracking clays) and Red Chromosols (red-brown earths), which have high water-holding capacity but can be sensitive to management changes.

A key point of interest is the project's proponent, Wilmot Cattle Co (managed by the Macdoch Group), which gained global attention in 2021 for a private carbon credit deal with Microsoft involving their other properties ("Wilmot" and "Woodburn" in the New England region). While those properties utilized a private market protocol (Regen Network), this specific project (ERF157466) was an attempt to utilize the Australian Government's regulated ACCU scheme for their Gunnedah aggregation. The project was voluntarily revoked in December 2024 under Section 30 of the CFI Rule, following a variation in March 2024 that removed parts of the project area. Public comments by management have previously highlighted the high administrative burden and costs associated with the regulated ACCU scheme compared to private alternatives.