Western Australia Rangelands Conservation Initiative Site #23

Western Australia Rangelands Conservation Initiative Site #23 is a Human-Induced Regeneration project located approximately 60km inland (east) from Carnarvon in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. It was registered in December 2022 and covers an extensive 25,732 hectares. The surrounding regional area is heavily utilized for pastoralism, primarily consisting of extensive cattle and sheep grazing operations on native pastures.

Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) projects involve establishing permanent native forests by fundamentally altering land management practices to allow native vegetation to recover. Standard requirements for this methodology dictate that the land must have been cleared of vegetation and regrowth continuously suppressed for at least 10 years prior to the project commencing. Regeneration is then assisted strictly from in-situ seed sources, such as existing rootstock and lignotubers, to ultimately achieve forest cover and establish a permanent even-aged native forest.

The environment in this inland Gascoyne region is classified as an arid to semi-arid climate, characterized by low and highly variable annual rainfall. The soils across the project area are typical of the region, predominantly consisting of red shallow sands, sandy earths, and loamy clay plains that support the hardy, drought-resistant native shrublands and woodlands native to the area.

To facilitate this regeneration, the project proponent, Terra Carbon Pty Limited, actively manages the suppression pressures on the land. Core project activities include strictly managing the timing and extent of livestock grazing, as well as the humane management of feral animals, both of which traditionally suppress native plant growth. Terra Carbon Pty Limited is a subsidiary of GreenCollar, one of Australia's largest corporate suppliers of nature-based carbon credits. The project relies on the FullCAM 2020 model to estimate its carbon sequestration, and its crediting period is scheduled to run until 2047.