Howson Carbon Project 15

Howson Carbon Project 15 is a soil carbon project located at Tarramba in the Banana Shire of Central Queensland, situated inland from the regional city of Gladstone. It was registered on March 4, 2022, and covers an area of 193.78 hectares.

The project operates under the Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration using Measurement and Models (2021) methodology. Soil carbon projects involve landholders undertaking new or materially altered agricultural management activities to increase the storage of organic carbon in their soil. Standard requirements for this methodology include establishing a baseline carbon level through rigorous soil sampling, implementing eligible agricultural practices, and using a combination of subsequent ground-truthed measurements and modelling to estimate the carbon sequestered to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

The Banana Shire region is predominantly known for cattle grazing (beef production), dryland cropping, and coal mining. The local environment is classified as semi-arid, experiencing summer-dominant average annual rainfall of approximately 620mm to 670mm. The typical soil types in this Central Queensland area include highly fertile Vertosols (cracking clay soils) and alluvial Dermosols, which support the region's prominent agricultural and pastoral enterprises. To build soil carbon, the project's activities involve re-establishing and rejuvenating pasture through seeding, as well as proactively altering the stocking rate, duration, and intensity of rotational grazing to promote soil vegetation cover and improve overall soil health.

An interesting fact about this project is that it is just one of 15 individual "Howson Carbon Projects" managed by Adam and Tracy Gunthorpe, as part of the Gunthorpe Cattle Company and Tarramba Brahmans grazing enterprise. Their broader operation runs 3,000 head of cattle across 20,000 acres. Developed in partnership with carbon soil-tech developer AgriProve, the broader Howson aggregation has quickly generated credits and also serves as a Producer Demonstration Site for Meat and Livestock Australia. This ongoing research explores the impact of soil carbon on grazing enterprises and how it can directly contribute to the Australian red meat industry's goal to be Carbon Neutral by 2030 (CN30).