Mileura Station, Murchison HIR Aggregation

Mileura Station, Murchison HIR Aggregation is a Human-Induced Regeneration project located at Mileura Station, approximately 100km west of Meekatharra and 350km northeast of Geraldton in the Mid West (Murchison) region of Western Australia. Registered in August 2020, the project covers a vast area of 250,399.80 hectares. The surrounding region is predominantly utilized for pastoral land uses, specifically sheep and cattle grazing, alongside active regional mining operations.

Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) projects involve establishing permanent native forests on land where vegetation has previously been cleared and natural regrowth suppressed. The standard requirements for this methodology mandate that regenerating vegetation must attain a forest cover, typically defined as reaching a height of at least two meters with a minimum 20% crown cover. The project proponent, Australian Integrated Carbon Financial Services Pty Ltd, implements specific management activities to achieve this, including the exclusion of livestock, careful management of the timing and extent of grazing, and the humane management of feral animals. Furthermore, this specific project focuses on assisted regeneration using in-situ seed sources, such as rootstock and lignotubers, on land where regrowth was actively suppressed for at least 10 years prior to the project’s commencement.

Environmentally, the Murchison region is classified as an arid to semi-arid climate, experiencing low and highly variable rainfall that averages around 200 to 250mm annually. The landscape features a mix of broad plains of red-brown earth, red sandplains, calcareous soils, and hardpan washplains, which naturally support mulga low-woodlands and spinifex shrublands.

An interesting fact about the project area is its international reputation in the scientific community. Due to its remote location and exceptionally "radio-quiet" environment, Mileura Station has hosted significant ecological research and was a major early candidate site for the global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. These foundational studies and investments paved the way for the core SKA-Low telescope site being built at the nearby Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory.