MacDonald Carbon Project

The MacDonald Carbon Project is a soil carbon sequestration initiative located approximately 40 kilometers east of Dubbo in the Central West region of New South Wales. Registered on June 11, 2021, the project currently spans 438.89 hectares. It is situated within the Dubbo Regional Council area, a district heavily reliant on agriculture.

This project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative-Measurement of Soil Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Systems) Methodology Determination 2018. This high-integrity method requires the landholder to implement new management activities, in this case, altering the stocking rate, duration, or intensity of grazing, to encourage the sequestration of carbon into the soil. Success is determined by physically sampling the soil to measure increases in Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks relative to a baseline, rather than relying solely on modeled estimates.

The region surrounding the project is characterized by a warm temperate climate with an average annual rainfall of approximately 600mm. The landscape is dominated by mixed farming, primarily sheep and cattle grazing alongside wheat and canola cropping. The soils in this area are typically red-brown earths and sandy loams, which are well-suited to regenerative grazing practices aimed at building soil health.

The project is developed by Agriprove Solutions, a prominent service provider in the Australian soil carbon sector. A variation to the project area was processed in February 2022, which reduced the total registered area. This likely reflects a refinement of the project boundary to exclude non-compliant land features, such as rocky outcrops or infrastructure, from the carbon estimation area.