Bokhara Plains Soil Carbon Project

Bokhara Plains Soil Carbon Project is a soil carbon sequestration project located at the Bokhara Plains property, approximately 35km north of Brewarrina in Western New South Wales. It was registered in October 2024 and covers an active project area of 4,123.23 hectares. A variation was made to the project in September 2025, which removed certain listed areas from the original project boundary.

Soil carbon projects utilizing the Measurement and Models methodology involve undertaking new or materially different eligible management activities to increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil. For this project, standard requirements involve altering the stocking rate, duration, or intensity of grazing to promote vegetation cover and improve overall soil health. Increases in soil organic carbon are subsequently estimated using a combination of baseline direct soil sampling and ongoing modelling to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

The Brewarrina region is situated in the semi-arid rangelands of Western NSW, an area historically known for extensive sheep and cattle grazing, agistment, and trading. The environment experiences low and highly erratic rainfall, averaging around 380mm annually. Soils in the region are frequently characterized by hard-setting claypans; Bokhara Plains itself largely falls within the Wongal Land system, featuring cracking clays and yellow texture-contrast soils.

This carbon project builds on over two decades of landscape rehabilitation by the property owners, Graham and Catherine Finlayson, who partnered with Atlas Agri Solutions (Atlas Carbon) as the proponent to formalize their operations. When the Finlaysons acquired the property in 1999, roughly 50% of the land consisted of bare claypans and severely degraded ground. Utilizing "Holistic Management" and intensive rotational grazing, they have successfully used the hoof impact of their livestock to break up hard-set clay crusts, allowing water infiltration, seed germination, and the return of perennial pastures. Their regenerative approach aims to make the landscape "rain-ready," ensuring the soil profile can effectively capture and retain moisture during erratic rainfall events to extend their carrying capacity through droughts.