Murgoo Station, Murchison HIR Aggregation

Murgoo Station, Murchison HIR Aggregation is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located in the remote Murchison region of Western Australia. The project is situated approximately 112km north of the township of Yalgoo and roughly 300km northeast of the major regional port city of Geraldton. Registered in August 2020, the project encompasses a vast area of 203,399 hectares. The region is historically dominated by rangeland pastoralism, specifically sheep and cattle grazing, which has been the primary land use since the station was established in the 1870s.

Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) projects involve implementing management changes to allow native forests to regenerate from in-situ seed sources, rootstock, or lignotubers. Unlike tree planting, this method relies on ceasing activities that previously suppressed regrowth, such as heavy grazing or mechanical clearing. For this specific project, the proponent, Australian Integrated Carbon, utilizes activities such as the exclusion of livestock and the humane management of feral animals (likely goats) to reduce grazing pressure. This allows the native vegetation to recover and eventually achieve "forest cover" status, defined as achieving a canopy cover of at least 20% and a height of 2 meters.

The Murchison environment is classified as arid to semi-arid, characterized by low and variable rainfall averaging between 200mm and 250mm annually, which falls predominantly in winter. The landscape features extensive flat colluvium and alluvial plains with red earth soils, hardpan, and sandy loams. The vegetation is typical of the Western Australian rangelands, consisting largely of Mulga (Acacia aneura) woodlands, saltbush shrublands, and scrub, which are resilient to the harsh, dry conditions but sensitive to overgrazing.

Murgoo Station itself holds significant historical value, having been established in 1873 by the Wittenoom family. It became one of the most prominent Merino wool producing stations in the district, once shearing over 30,000 sheep annually in the 1920s. The station's homestead is listed on the State Heritage Register. The transition of such a historic pastoral lease into a carbon project reflects a broader trend in the Australian rangelands, where carbon farming is increasingly used to diversify income streams alongside or in place of traditional wool and meat production. The proponent, Australian Integrated Carbon (AIC), attracted significant investment from Mitsubishi Corporation in 2021, highlighting international interest in Australian nature-based solutions.