Arcturus Downs Biodiversity Restoration Project 1

Arcturus Downs Biodiversity Restoration Project 1 is an environmental planting project located at the Arcturus Downs property, approximately 32km from Springsure and 61km from Emerald in the Central Highlands region of Queensland. It was registered on October 28, 2025, and initially covered 12,501.80 hectares, with subsequent area variations adding additional land to the project in February 2026.

Environmental planting projects under the Carbon Farming Initiative involve establishing and maintaining permanent, mixed-species plantings of native trees and shrubs. To satisfy the standard requirements of this methodology, the species mix must reflect the structure and composition of the local native vegetation community, and stems are typically planted at a density sufficient to achieve a mature crown cover of at least 20% and a height of at least 2 metres.

The Central Highlands area surrounding Arcturus Downs is highly regarded for its multifaceted agricultural operations. The regional land use is heavily focused on institutional-scale beef cattle breeding and backgrounding, alongside large-scale irrigated and dryland broadacre cropping (including cotton, sorghum, wheat, and chickpeas). The region generally experiences summer-dominant rainfall and the local environment benefits from highly productive brigalow soils and deep alluvial scrub soils adjacent to local waterways like the Comet River and Springsure Creek.

This project is notably driven by Meldora Land Management Pty Ltd, an entity managed by Gunn Agri Partners. In 2024, Canadian global investment group La Caisse (CDPQ) partnered with Australia's Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to create the $250 million Meldora platform. The platform subsequently acquired the Arcturus Downs aggregation to demonstrate a sustainable land management model that successfully integrates high-integrity biodiversity restoration with traditional commercial agricultural production.