Palmerville Station Savanna Burning project

The Palmerville Station Savanna Burning project is a Savanna Fire Management project located on the historic Palmerville Station in the Palmer River region of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. The vast project area covers 133,309 hectares and is situated approximately 140 kilometers west of the coastal community of Wujal Wujal and roughly 200 kilometers northwest of Mareeba. Registered in May 2023, the project operates on a working cattle station that has diversified into eco-tourism and gold fossicking, leveraging the region's rich history as the center of the 1873 Palmer River Gold Rush.

The project utilizes the Savanna Fire Management, Sequestration and Emissions Avoidance (2018) methodology. This approach involves conducting strategic, low-intensity burns during the early dry season (typically cooler months) to reduce fuel loads and create fire breaks. This prevents uncontrollable, high-intensity wildfires in the late dry season, which release significant amounts of methane and nitrous oxide. Unlike standard emissions avoidance projects, the "Sequestration" component of this method also credits the project for carbon stored in dead organic matter (coarse woody debris) that is preserved in the landscape rather than being consumed by hot fires.

Environmentally, the region falls within a high rainfall tropical savanna zone, experiencing a distinct monsoonal wet season with annual rainfall often exceeding 1000mm. The terrain is rugged, underlain by the Hodgkinson Formation and Cannibal Creek Granite, which produce predominantly skeletal and alluvial soils supporting Eucalypt woodlands and speargrass. The project is managed by Chelsea On The Park Pty Ltd in collaboration with the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation, highlighting a partnership that integrates modern carbon abatement with Traditional Owner knowledge from the Western Yalanji people.