Mike Walter Oil Mallee Project

Mike Walter Oil Mallee Project is a new farm forestry planting project located at Canterbury Farm in the rural locality of Kulja, approximately 250km northeast of Perth in the Western Australian Wheatbelt region. Registered in April 2021, the project establishes a 296.34-hectare plantation of Eucalyptus kochii on land that was previously used for broadacre agriculture. The project area boundaries were officially amended under a variation in July 2022.

The project operates under the "Measurement Based Methods for New Farm Forestry Plantations Methodology Determination 2014". This methodology allows landholders to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by establishing permanent forests or rotational harvest plantations. To be eligible, the planting must occur on land that has been clear of forest cover and actively used for grazing or cropping for at least five years prior to the project's commencement.

The Kulja area, located within the Koorda Shire, is dominated by broadacre agriculture, primarily wheat and barley cropping alongside sheep grazing. The region is characterised by a semi-arid, Mediterranean climate with low but reliable winter rainfall, typically averaging 350mm to 400mm annually. Soils in this part of the Wheatbelt are highly mixed, mostly consisting of sandplains, sandy duplex soils, loamy gravels, and grey clays.

A fascinating aspect of this project is its integration into a comprehensive circular economy model by the proponent, Fasera Estates. The Eucalyptus kochii (oil mallees) are sustainably harvested by coppicing, a technique where the trunk is shorn near ground level to stimulate rapid regrowth, ensuring continuous biomass production and carbon sequestration. The harvested green biomass is steam-distilled on-site to produce high-quality eucalyptus oil for commercial sale. Furthermore, the spent biomass remaining after distillation is processed in a continuous pyrolysis plant to produce commercial biochar and wood vinegar. Any excess biomass that cannot be processed through pyrolysis is buried in sealed, monitored chambers on the property to generate carbon dioxide removal (CDR) certificates through a process known as Terrestrial Storage of Biomass (TSB).