A carbon farmer has bought a cattle station in the Northern Territory for almost $30 million.
A focus of the Corporate Carbon Group will be the savanna burning widely practiced by Indigenous groups across the Top End to prevent large scale fires.
The group has bought the 187,200 hectare Ban Ban Springs Station, about 150km from Darwin at Hayes Creek.
The savanna country takes in more than 17 million hectares of grasslands and woodlands across the north.
Without fire management, the savanna burns late in the dry season, resulting in large, hot and intense fires, made more so with infestations of Gamba grass.
These fires produce more greenhouse gas emissions and burn a greater proportion of dead organic matter than fires the fires deliberately lit across a patchwork of country early in the dry season.
Savanna carbon farming methods have sparked a multi-million dollar industry generating carbon credits and have been copied across the world.
Research shows the area of hot, late dry season fires across northern Australia has halved over the past 15 years.
The frequency of fires has been reduced over an area the size of Germany, or one and a half times the size of Victoria.
Sydney-headquartered Corporate Carbon Group paid $28.9 million for Ban Ban Springs with the company saying it would "work to complement Ban Ban Springs' cattle production with a savanna fire management carbon project".
"We're currently assessing all activities on the property, including the annual campdraft event, and will consider how we can continue or enhance these to benefit the local community."
Corporate Carbon Group already owns Watson River Station and several other properties in Queensland.
Ban Ban Springs Station is one of the oldest cattle stations in the NT and was formerly owned by Gunther Gschwenter, the founder of the Britz campervan business.
It was once linked as well to the Sultan of Brunei.
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Chris McLennan
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
