Greening Australia’s ‘bold aspirations’ to revegetate more than 100,000ha of WA’s most unproductive land

A senior executive at one of Australia’s biggest carbon farming organisations has urged farmers to do plenty of research and “get comfortable” before signing into the “marriage” of a tree-planting agreement. Paul della Libera, the acting chief operating officer of Greening Australia, said the company had been an “early adopter” in terms of creating value for landholders while completing environmental work. It owns two properties used for carbon plantings in WA, the 1150ha Jarrega near Coorow and the 750ha property Peniup near the Stirling Range. A total 1150ha has been planted at Jarrega, with a further 500ha set to be planted there this year. About 600ha of Peniup has been planted so far. “Landholders have always been core to our value proposition,” Mr della Libera said. “Farmers can have an agricultural enterprise and complementing environmental plantings. “They (tree plantings) don’t have displace current land use or income streams, but can actually complement the work farmers are doing.” Greening Australia had what Mr della Libera said was a “bold aspiration” of restoring 330,000ha across Australia by 2030, more than 110,000ha which would be in WA. As well as the plantings on its own properties, the organisation will plant 360ha with third-party landholders in WA this year as part of a 5077ha planting schedule — not all of which is for carbon. Mr della Libera said WA was a priority for the organisation, which was targeting landholders in the southern part of the State who were keen to “connect biodiversity corridors” and in the Wheatbelt, farmers who had pockets of land that were “completely unproductive” for traditional agriculture. “Traditionally, WA has been a sizeable part of our restoration market, it is a big market and there is a big space and a lot of ground to cover,” he said. “South Australia is increasingly important. Places like NSW on the east coast, they may have smaller footprints but can do more because of geography and rainfall.” Mr della Libera — who is also executive director of Greening Australia’s carbon credit arm, Canopy — said Greening Australia was trying to instil more confidence that its work would not be “at odds with the work they do on their land”. “In the carbon space and emerging biodiversity markets, fundamentally you are entering into a marriage — it is a legal construct with a 25 year period behind it,” he said. He encouraged farmers to have a clear proposition about what they wanted to achieve on their farm when engaging with a company about generating carbon credits or entering a long-term agreement. “Don’t get into a position where you feel like you are being wedged into a discussions you don’t understand,” he said. “There is a lot of information out there to walk through — benefits, pitfalls, risks and opportunities “Farmers should be very clear on what they want to achieve on their property.” In a further boon for the organisation, the WA-based Department of Water and Environmental Regulation last year appointed Greening Australia as its lead delivery partner coordinating environmental offset revegetation projects in WA. The move formed part of the State Government’s Green Jobs Plan, a $60.3 million, job-creation investment in environmental projects across the State.