Drysdale River NP - Savanna Burning Project

Drysdale River NP - Savanna Burning Project is a savanna fire management emissions avoidance project located at Drysdale River National Park in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, approximately 100km south of Kalumburu and 150km west of Wyndham. It was registered in December 2020 and covers a vast 446,844.32 hectares.

Savanna fire management (emissions avoidance) projects involve strategic, planned burning of savanna areas during the early dry season. The standard requirement of this methodology is to intentionally conduct smaller, cooler fires to reduce dry fuel loads, which in turn prevents massive, high-intensity wildfires from occurring in the late dry season. To accurately measure the avoided greenhouse gas emissions, projects are required to calculate their abatement using the approved Savanna Burning Abatement Tool (SavBAT), with this project specifically utilising the SavBAT 3 model.

The wider North Kimberley region is characterised by vast untouched wilderness, Aboriginal lands, and expansive pastoral stations used for cattle grazing. The Drysdale River National Park area falls within a high rainfall zone, receiving heavy, concentrated downpours during the summer wet season. The landscape features broad valleys, deep gorges, and waterfalls, while regional soils primarily consist of deep red and brown sands on the plains, skeletal rocky soils around the gorges, and patches of cracking clay.

This project was established by the Conservation and Land Management Executive Body (which manages Western Australia's conservation estates) to strategically reduce fire emissions in the park's high rainfall areas. Interestingly, Drysdale River National Park is the largest and least accessible national park in the Kimberley. Because it has no public roads leading to it, no visitor facilities, and no airstrip within its boundaries, executing the project's planned burning activities requires highly specialised and remote operations.