Nativ Carbon has reached its 25 per cent target of Aboriginal employment as it starts the planting of 2.6 million plants over more than 5400 hectares new Coorow.
The planting crew - which this month began one of Australia's single largest biodiversity plantings ever - includes more than 50 people, across six sub-contractors.
Two Aboriginal businesses were subcontracted - Gambara which hired local Yued people around Moora, and Badgebup Aboriginal Corporation, based in Badgebup, near Katanning.
"Nativ Carbon continues to source as many local people as possible for our large-scale planting projects," said Nativ Carbon director Matthew Oswald.
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"This provides an important boost for regional and Indigenous employment.
"We are very much invested in this industry and region.
"We plan to grow our capacity each year and it remains our intention to genuinely offer long-term employment for Aboriginal people.
"This project builds on last year's planting nearby.
"For some workers who returned to review last year's planting around Moora, you can see the 2022 seedlings have grown well.
"For those of us involved, there is a huge sense of pride."
The starting of planting was commemorated by a Welcome to Country event attended by Yued elders including Colin Headland, June Headland and Beverley Port-Louis.
Ms Port-Louis has been working with Nativ Carbon for the past two years to assist the company in hiring as many Aboriginal people, from the Moora area, as possible in regional planting works.
"Nativ Carbon's work in Coorow this year and Moora last year was a good opportunity for the Yued community to participate in regional employment and learn new skills in carbon farming," Ms Port-Louis said.
She hopes younger family members and people based in Moora will continue to engage with Nativ Carbon and join planting crews, as well as seed collection teams for many years to come.
Surface preparation for this year's project sites, which began in late May 2023, included furrows being ripped and scalped.
Weather forecasts are predicting adequate rainfall for the 2.6 million seedlings that are being planted over the next four weeks.
A wide range of biodiverse plants - including melaleucas, banksias, hakeas and woody pears - will be used.
Many species are local to the area and have been grown from seed by Plantrite nursery, near Bullsbrook.
Nativ Carbon director David Lullfitz, who oversaw the growing of more than 2.6 million native plants, said they were expanding their capabilities to grow more species of native plants.
"This will foster biodiversity and habitat restoration in WA's Wheatbelt," Mr Lullfitz said.
"Importantly, banksias feature prominently because they are a major source of food for endangered Carnaby Cockatoos which frequent the area.
"Woody pear is iconic to the region and special effort was made again to collect the seeds from nearby populations.
"We grew them into seedlings - at a nursery near Bullsbrook - and now, as seedlings, we can return plants to their endemic location.
"Local provenance is very important to biodiversity results and we continue to aim to grow plants that originally existed within these regions, as we did in 2022."
