The many players behind a pioneering carbon farming deal

The decision announced today (Wednesday) provides an insight into the financing of these often complex deals happening right across Australia.

This arrangement involves a charity group, an ambitious carbon farming company and one of the nation's biggest banks.

Former sheep station Boodanoo (131,000 hectares, 323,708 acres) is about 85km south east of Mount Magnet in WA's Mid West.

It has been bought by "social enterprise" and charity group Forever Wild which also owns the adjacent Narndee Station now collectively known as the Boodanoo Wilderness Zone covering 292,000ha (721,500 acres).

Both were formerly owned by Julie and Robert Broadhurst.

Today the sheep are gone as Forever Wild operate its "low-impact agriculture program" which includes a small cattle operation.

Forever Wild's first owns a reserve adjacent to the Hann Tableland National Park in the Cape York region of Queensland.

Forever Wild has teamed up with the Sydney-headquartered Corporate Carbon Group and Australian company Belmpact to pursue its aim of protecting biodiversity.

The Commonwealth Bank is also involved making what it called a "landmark transaction" of $1.7 million in 2022 to pre-pay some of these carbon credits.

It was one of the first known private carbon credit pre-payment deals in Australia.

This $1.7 million supported Forever Wild Ltd, a charity within Forever Wild Group, to acquire and manage pastoral leases for the Narndee and Boodanoo stations (covering a combined 226,623ha, 560,000 acres) along with the associated carbon credit project.

Corporate Carbon provides technical support to Forever Wild with its carbon project.

Forever Wild's also owns a reserve adjacent to the Hann Tableland National Park in the Cape York region of Queensland.

Corporate Carbon has been busy buying its own stations across northern Australia.

Last year the company spent $70 million to buy four Cape York properties - Watson River, and the Holroyd aggregation which comprises Holroyd River, Crystalvale and Yarraden, located 150km southwest of Coen. The four Cape York properties total 522,000ha.

The company also bought the 187,200ha Ban Ban Springs Station in the NT for $29 million in 2022.

A focus of the group is the savanna burning widely practiced by Indigenous groups across the Top End to prevent large scale fires.

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.

With the Boodanoo and Narndee stations plan, more carbon credits are expected to flow to the scheme from protecting populations of Mallee Fowl.

Boodanoo Wilderness Zone is also hosts a listed "Human Induced Regeneration" revegetation project which has increased in popularity.

"This project establishes permanent native forests through assisted regeneration from in-situ seed sources (including rootstock and lignotubers) on land that was cleared of vegetation and where regrowth was suppressed for at least 10 years prior to the project having commenced."

It expects to attract 89,407 carbon credits.

Today's announcement involves "co-benefit units" on work to protect the Mallee Fowl "and to undertake comprehensive biodiversity management assessments across a vast area that remains largely undocumented".

"This first round of high integrity ACCUs unlocks a new opportunity to drive further impact at scale in the carbon industry beyond the primary goal of emissions reduction," Corporate Carbon Group managing director Gary Wyatt said.

"The Narndee and Boodanoo project is a strong example of cattle and carbon working alongside each other to provide additional environmental outcomes that are now fully verifiable, working to support a profitable and viable agricultural economy."

Forever Wild Group chief executive Fiachra Kearney said: "To date the market has been flooded with vague co-benefit claims that often only represent the intrinsic benefits of the carbon project.

"With this new framework we can not only bring high integrity credits to market but also give financiers and investors the confidence to invest in a sustainable future for the agricultural industry."

These co-benefits are unitised on a blockchain registry, where buyers, project developers and beneficiaries all have visibility on the costs of winning additional environmental outcomes.

Meanwhile, selling agents LAWD have highlighted the carbon farming opportunities for two big Territory cattle stations on the market.

Maryfield and Limbunya stations together take in more 669,183ha (1.65 million acres).

With already approved carbon projects, it is estimated Maryfield Station will generate 4.6 million ACCUs over a 25-year crediting period, while Limbunya Station is forecast to generate 5.8 million ACCUs over the same amount of time.

Spot prices for the most commonly available generic carbon credits and human-induced regeneration (HIR) ACCU credits are around $30.

On those numbers, Maryfield would accumulate $138m over the 25 years, and Limbunya $174m over the same period.

But carbon credits remain hard to calculate with different returns for different projects, savannah burning for instance can attract a higher return.