NT Cattle Conservation HIR Project #02142022 IDR

NT Cattle Conservation HIR Project #02142022 IDR is a Human-Induced Regeneration project located at Idracowra Station, approximately 120km south of Alice Springs in the MacDonnell Shire of the Northern Territory. It was registered in December 2022 and covers an area of 466,041.86 hectares.

Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) projects involve the establishment of permanent even-aged native forests through assisted regeneration from in-situ seed sources, such as rootstock and lignotubers, on land where regrowth was previously suppressed for at least 10 years. Under this methodology, proponents must implement specific practice changes to allow native trees to grow to maturity. For this project, standard activities involve managing the timing and extent of livestock grazing, controlling feral animals in a humane manner, and managing non-native plant species.

The central Australian region surrounding the project is predominantly used for expansive cattle grazing and pastoral enterprises. The area is classified as arid to semi-arid, experiencing low and variable rainfall (historically around 8 inches or 200mm annually). The landscape is characterised by the Finke River catchment, sand hills, open grass plains, spinifex ridges, and low edible mulga, with soils typically comprising red sandy soils, red earths, and desert loams.

An interesting aspect of this project is its use of cutting-edge technology. The proponent, RegenCo, claims it is the first in Australia to use a combined airborne-LiDAR and satellite spectral mapping approach across an entire HIR project property to precisely track tree and sapling metrics and identify species. The underlying property, Idracowra Station, also has a colourful history; it was previously owned by a UAE oil billionaire, Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, before being sold to a local pastoral family in 2019 to run in conjunction with a neighbouring station. Furthermore, property management activities have included active firefighting, as a recent wildfire affected approximately 9,350ha of the carbon project area, meaning ACCU generation for those specific carbon estimation areas was paused until regeneration could surpass pre-fire levels.