Bar 4 Carbon Project

The Bar 4 Carbon Project is a plantation forestry project located in the Shire of Dandaragan, approximately 30km northwest of Moora in Western Australia. Registered in June 2023, the project covers a substantial area of 1,186 hectares. The surrounding region is part of the West Midlands agricultural area, traditionally utilised for broadacre cropping and sheep grazing, which is now seeing an increasing integration of carbon farming initiatives.

Operating under the 2022 Plantation Forestry methodology, this project involves establishing a new plantation forest intended for commercial wood production. Unlike environmental plantings which are permanent conservation forests, plantation forestry projects generate carbon credits by sequestering carbon in trees that are eventually harvested, accounting for the carbon stored in the wood products and the regrowth cycles.

The project site is characterised by "sand plain and gravel" soils, typical of the Dandaragan Plateau. The local climate is Mediterranean, generally receiving between 500mm and 600mm of annual rainfall, sufficient to support forestry in this specific pocket of the Wheatbelt. A notable feature of the project is the proponent's approach to land management; Outback Carbon Pty Ltd, which is managed by Mitsui E&P Australia, integrates sheep grazing within the plantation to manage weeds and reduce fire risk, maintaining agricultural productivity alongside carbon sequestration.