CARBON FARMING IN TROPICAL NORTH QUEENSLAND
GENERATING NEW INCOME STREAMS FOR LANDHOLDERS
17 OCTOBER 2022
Queensland is responsible for 90% of Australia’s total land sector emissions. Avoiding further land clearing is essential but it is only one component, we also need to encourage reforestation.
What is carbon farming?
Carbon farming is a way for landholders to generate another income from their land and also make improvements to their ‘natural capital’. You can derive an income either by avoiding carbon emissions or by sequestering emissions, which means drawing carbon down and storing it.
Landholders can reduce carbon emissions through practices such as reducing methane from livestock, reducing fertiliser emissions, manure management and savannah fire management or sequester carbon through reforestation as an example.
Carbon farming methods
There are several different methods that have been developed for carbon farming including:
- Beef – herd improvement, feeding nitrates
- Soil carbon
- Irrigated cotton
- Dairy – destruction of methane, dietary additives
- Vegetation – reforestation, revegetation, protecting native forests
- Blue carbon
- Savannah fire management
Cassowary Credits
Terrain NRM is developing a new biodiversity credit scheme that is designed to be stacked on top of carbon credits to make it more viable for landholders in the Wet Tropics to derive an income from reforestation.
Interested in finding out more about carbon farming?
A number of resources have been developed for landholders in Queensland who are interested in carbon farming.
Louise Gavin from Remarkable NRM has written a must-read handbook in partnership with NRMRQ and QFF with funding from the Queensland Government. It provides a comprehensive overview of the market and is a good starting point for landholders who are interested in finding out more.
**Download: Carbon Farming Handbook for Land Managers in Queensland (2022).
This video presentation by Louise also provides a basic overview:
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