They might be almost 100 kms apart but Murray-Riverina region properties, Savernake and Warangee, have a very special thing in common: they’re both protecting native woodlands and generating carbon credits under a first-of-its-kind initiative led by the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust.
Property owners, Judy Frankenberg, of Warangee, and David Sloane, of Savernake, are among a number of the region’s farming families to sign in-perpetuity agreements to protect, enhance and extend patches of important native vegetation while generating Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) under the Restoring Murray Woodlands Biodiversity and Carbon Tender.
The combined biodiversity and carbon opportunity has attracted the attention of private landholders with 788 hectares of threatened native habitat to protect under conservation agreements with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust, and 141 hectares registered with the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Regulator to generate ACCUs.
Judy Frankenberg has lived on Warangee for 55 years and started planting native trees in the late 1980s.
She says the opportunity appealed to her as a way of making sure the conservation work she and her family has done over the years will remain even after she is gone.
“Receiving payments to do more conservation work is a big help because there is always some cost in maintenance and pest and weed control,” she said.
“The carbon plantings will be of great benefit because not only will the trees store carbon, which is a good thing, they will also provide payments and an all-important environmental benefit to the land.
“By putting the land under this agreement, I know that even with the changes that happen as years go by, we'll be able to make sure this work continues into the future.”
David Sloane's connection to the land goes back even further.
His family settled in the area in 1862, and generations have been farming and living there ever since. It’s not surprising he feels a deep responsibility for the conservation of the family property, near Mulwala, on the Murray River.
He grew up at Savernake, a heritage-listed pastoral property of Inland Grey Box Woodlands and Sandhill Pine Woodlands.
“I used to walk around this beautiful property as a four or five-year-old among all these trees and the trees became my friends, especially the yellow box,” he said.
“I knew every yellow box in the whole area and while I walked through the forest, I had a sense of the sacred. Someone once said the forest is a green cathedral, and that's what I felt when I was walking through.”
That childhood was 80 years ago and in the decades that have since passed, sheep were grazing across large portions of the land until a few years ago when they were removed from the western paddocks to allow the pasture to rest.
David says that in that time, and with good rain, yellow box and grey box gums have started to return to the area.
“They sprung up like weeds and at one point I tried to count them but got to 1000 and stopped because there was just too many,” he said.
“We knew if we put sheep back in there, they would eat the trees so when the BCT came along I took the opportunity to sign a conservation agreement and save them.
“Now we get an annual payment, which covers things like fencing, which is vital because you to have to fence off your carbon area, and other items like fire breaks and weed control.
“I would encourage everyone to think seriously about putting aside some acreage to carbon farming because it's going to benefit the next generation and the next generation after that.”
Judy, David and the other landholders who have entered into the agreements have signed up to plant a diverse mix of local plant species.
NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust Regional Manager Dieuwer Reynders says the landholders will be able to use these plantings to earn carbon credits.
“When those plants mature, the sites will be protected forever under the conservation agreements, ensuring the carbon remains in the landscape and provides exceptional biodiversity benefits in a highly modified landscape, she said.”
“This project has had the benefit of drawing on the expertise of local landholders and experts at Murray Native Seed Services who provide locally sourced seeds in their plantings.”
The NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust has invested $6.31m into this program to date. Funding has been set aside in the NSW Government’s Biodiversity Conservation Fund for private landholders to manage the newly protected sites in-perpetuity.