Push is on to open up carbon farming

Jason Hastie, Pingandy station in the Upper Gascoyne, last week described the PLB’s response to a request from the Gascoyne Catchments Group (GCG) for support in seeking approval of a Rangelands carbon farming methodology as “pathetic”.

“It seems the PLB is happy to maintain a do-nothing approach (on carbon farming), we should expect much more from the PLB,” Mr Hastie said.

“In a response that reads like a prime example of bureaucratic double-speak, seemingly offering solutions whilst none exist, the PLB has effectively dismissed GCG’s request that the board investigate and develop options for carbon farming on pastoral leases.

“Carbon farming represents an additional source income, which pastoralists in other States are able to access, which can boost productivity, help restore degraded lands and diversify the rangeland economy.”

In July, Mr Hastie presented a petition supporting Rangelands carbon farming, signed by 42 Gascoyne pastoralists who manage more than 5.8 million hectares, to policy advisers to Regional Development Food and Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan.

Discussions with Lands Department officers have established low-level carbon farming could receive departmental support under existing leases in preferrence to trying to amend possibly both the Lands Administration and Native Title acts.

Statements by Lands Minister Rita Saffioti and Ms MacTiernan have given pastoralists hope the government will support their carbon farming push if the PLB also backs it.

They claim PLB and State government support in recognising low-level carbon farming as an approved pastoral activity that could enable them to access almost $200,000 a year in supplementary income available under a national scheme.

It would be earned by sequestering carbon in vegetation and soil through approved specific landscape revegetation and restoration protocols as a complementary additional pastoral activity to stock management.

Carbon rights could be sold under the Federal government’s voluntary Emission Reduction Fund project set up in 2014 and administered by the Clean Energy Regulator which buys and auctions carbon rights.

Mr Hastie said even without a carbon trading scheme in Australia, Rangelands pastoralists could still profit from international demand for carbon credits if an approved carbon farming methodology was recognised as a pastoral activity.

“Such demand is coming from countries and States with their own emissions trading schemes,” Mr Hastie said.

“More demand will be coming from schemes such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

“From 2020 this deal will limit greenhouse gases from international aviation by offsetting increases in airline carbon dioxide with credits.”

“It is hard to believe that an industry with the potential value (possibly up to $300 billion for the Rangelands if estimates of a future carbon price of $60 a tonne are realised) can be so easily dismissed by the PLB.

“Anyone who has done any sort of research into carbon farming is aware of the evidence that well managed grazing increases carbon sequestration, so it cannot be argued that carbon farming should be separate to pastoralism, they are mutual activities.”

GCG chairman Sean D’Arcy, who manages Lyndon and Towera stations in the Gascoyne, wrote to the PLB 12 months ago asking for support in requesting the State government help Rangeland communities develop carbon farming as an economic pastoral activity.

The GCG asked for PLB support of the government developing policy to allow an effective carbon farming method and to either contract Rangelands managers to sequester carbon or transfer carbon rights to pastoral leases so managers can access the income stream.

In a reply in March, PLB chairman Tim Shackleton said the PLB supported carbon farming expanding and advised it is “already within the pastoral lease estate”, with the Lands Department expected to develop a policy this year to enable carbon farming on Crown land.

Mr Shackleton also advised not all carbon farming methods were “applicable” under a pastoral permit and pastoralists should check first with the Lands Department.

He said the GCG’s stance in wanting the government to play a “more intensive role” in developing carbon farming on pastoral leases was not shared by all in the industry.

Last month Mr D’Arcy responded to the PBL reply with an email reiterating there was “no accepted methodology for carbon sequestration in the Rangelands to quantify improved carbon stocks via changed grazing management”.

“The (nationally eligible) carbon farming method for grazing management in place explicitly says it is not suitable for rangelands,” Mr D’Arcy said.

“There is an opportunity for the PLB to take a leadership position to encourage and support the development of a methodology suitable for the Rangelands and appropriate policy changes to allow pastoralists who chose to participate in a carbon market to be able to do so.”