Western Australia Rangelands Conservation Initiative Site #24

Western Australia Rangelands Conservation Initiative Site #24 is a Human-Induced Regeneration (HIR) project located in the remote Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Situated within the Shire of Dundas, the project is approximately 70km northeast of the Balladonia roadhouse and community, near the western edge of the Nullarbor Plain. Registered in September 2023, the project covers a massive area of 318,232 hectares, encompassing vast tracts of the arid rangelands historically utilized for pastoral grazing.

The project operates under the Human-Induced Regeneration methodology, which focuses on restoring native vegetation that has been suppressed by agricultural activity. In this specific region, the primary suppressors are livestock (sheep or cattle) and feral animals (such as goats). By actively managing the timing and extent of grazing and implementing humane feral animal control, the proponent aims to allow native tree species, likely including Mulga (Acacia aneura) and Eucalypt woodlands, to regenerate from in-situ seed banks and rootstock to reach permanent forest status.

The environment in this part of the Shire of Dundas is semi-arid to arid, characterized by low and variable rainfall, typically averaging between 200mm and 250mm annually. The soils are predominantly calcareous earths and red sandy loams, typical of the transition zone between the Great Western Woodlands and the Nullarbor Plain. The landscape generally supports low open woodlands, chenopod shrublands, and mallee scrub, which are highly resilient but slow to recover without human intervention to reduce grazing pressure.

An interesting note on this project is its proponent, Terra Carbon Pty Limited, which is a subsidiary of the GreenCollar Group, one of Australia’s largest environmental markets developers. The "Site #24" designation, along with other similar registrations (e.g., Site #14, Site #22) across Western Australia, indicates this is part of a broad, landscape-scale portfolio approach to carbon farming, likely aggregating multiple pastoral leases or large landholdings under a unified management strategy.