FPC 2024 CP3

FPC 2024 CP3 is a commercial plantation forestry project located across the South West timber region of Western Australia. The project aggregates multiple distinct areas, with key sites situated approximately 6km southeast of Nannup, 10km south of Greenbushes (near Bridgetown), and in the Lake Muir region roughly 40km east of Manjimup. Registered in October 2024, the project covers a total area of 1,084 hectares.

The region is the heart of Western Australia’s forestry and agricultural sector, characterized by a high-rainfall Mediterranean climate (generally exceeding 600mm annually). The landscape features undulating plateaus and valleys with high-quality forestry soils, typically consisting of lateritic gravels, sandy loams, and karri loams. These conditions support a mix of land uses including dairy farming, horticulture, and extensive hardwood and softwood plantations.

Operating under the 2022 Plantation Forestry methodology, the project involves both establishing new plantation forests and converting existing short-rotation plantations into long-rotation forests. In the context of the Forest Products Commission (FPC), this activity typically involves transitioning land from short-rotation crops (such as Tasmanian Bluegum for woodchips) to long-rotation softwood (Radiata Pine for structural timber). This extension of the rotation period allows trees to grow larger and store carbon for significantly longer durations in both the biological mass and the resulting long-lived wood products.

This project appears to be part of the Western Australian Government’s $350 million Softwood Plantation Investment Program, which aims to expand the state’s pine estate by 33,000 hectares to secure future timber supply while generating Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs). The "CP3" designation suggests this is the third in a series of carbon project tranches registered by the FPC in 2024 to manage this expansion.