THE potential saltbush has for commercial carbon sequestration is the focus of a joint project between some of Western Australia's leading groups and research organisations in the realm of carbon farming.
About one million hectares of saline and semi-saline land in the Wheatbelt has been taken out of production and is no longer used for standard agricultural purposes.
While there has been research on saltbush, it's predominantly been from the perspective of animal fodder and grazing, so there is no methodology to evaluate the commercial carbon sequestration of saltbush plantings.
The viability of that is what the partnership between Murdoch University, Wheatbelt Natural Resource Management (NRM), Facey Group, Corrigin Farm Improvement Group and several Wheatbelt farmers is set to explore.
Murdoch University professor Richard Harper said a lot of people had already been planting saltbush as landcare plantings, so this was a way they might be able to get paid for that through the carbon markets.
"The way the carbon market works is that there are a series of methodologies to develop Australian carbon credit units (ACCU)," Dr Harper said.
"That exists for plantation forestry, environmental plantings, however our understanding is that there is not a methodology that covers grazing shrubs.
"With this project, we want to gather enough data to make a case to the Commonwealth, which develops the methodologies, that it's worth doing that for saltbush."
Work previously completed by Murdoch University on saltbush at about half a dozen sites across the country showed between two and four tonnes per hectare per year of carbon credits.
While that's not a huge amount, the carbon price has been going up so at the worst it might be a way of subsiding saltbush plantings and in the best-case scenario, it might be a way of converting unused and damaged land to something capable of producing an income.
Wheatbelt NRM program manager Felicity Gilbert said the project would adopt a multi-faceted approach to measuring the carbon sequestration of saltbush.
"In the first instance, we'll be working with farmers who have existing plantings of various ages and this will determine the carbon levels stored in aged plantings and provide a baseline analysis," Ms Gilbert said.
"Secondly, we'll work with landholders on planting new saltbush stands and in this phase, we will be measuring the quantity of carbon stored over a predetermined time frame."
These two aspects will then be used to make a case for an Emissions Reduction Fund methodology which will unlock very large amounts of sequestration potential.
Results from the first part of the project, in terms of whether it's worth pursuing, should be available within a year of measurement and analysis.
However, the second aspect, which includes investigating where it's possible to improve the amount of growth sequestration by varying densities and saltbush species, will take longer.
The project has been made possible through funding from the State government's Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program, which aims to support WA's agriculture sector to respond to global market forces and adapt farming systems to incorporate carbon sequestration, while creating opportunities to participate in the carbon market and improve long-term business viability.
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