Coalara Park Australian Sandalwood Plantation Project

Coalara Park Australian Sandalwood Plantation Project is a Plantation Forestry project located near the town of Badgingarra in the Shire of Dandaragan, approximately 200km north of Perth in Western Australia. It was registered in June 2021 and originally covered 2,335.73 hectares.

Plantation Forestry projects involve establishing and maintaining a new plantation forest intended for the commercial harvesting of wood products. Under this methodology, carbon is sequestered in the growing trees, forest debris, and eventually harvested wood products, generating carbon credits while maintaining productive commercial forestry operations. In this specific case, the project focuses on cultivating a new Australian Sandalwood plantation.

The Badgingarra and broader Dandaragan region features a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and winter-dominant rainfall. The area receives an average annual rainfall of approximately 480mm to 530mm. The environment is part of the Northern Sandplains and is characterised by sandy soil types such as Arenosols and Tenosols. Surrounding regional land use consists predominantly of mixed farming operations, largely incorporating sheep and beef cattle grazing alongside the broadacre cropping of wheat and lupins.

An interesting note about this project is that the underlying 4,422-hectare property, Coalara Park, was purchased by a corporate interest in early 2021 specifically to develop this sandalwood plantation. Since its registration, the project updated its methodology from the 2017 Plantation Forestry determination to the 2022 Plantation Forestry determination in August 2022, and underwent a variation in April 2025 to remove certain areas from the registered project boundaries.