The Essentials
- The LRF announced recently that it will open a new round of investment this year.
- More details will be available during this month/July
- There will also be a Queensland Natural Capital Fund to support ongoing investment in environmental services markets and payments
- The LRF investment rounds are competitive, so we recommend giving prompt consideration at a high level about your company’s interest in carbon farming and associated co-benefits projects.
The Details
The Queensland Land Restoration Fund offers co-investment funds for projects that are or are eligible to be registered with the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) as a carbon farming project. There are several methods that can be used to sequester atmospheric carbon under a CER project including vegetation (ie sequestering carbon in trees), soil and some more specific ones.
A carbon farming project requires the land owner to substantially modify or intensify their ordinary practices, or start using one of the approved activities. For the reader’s convenience here are the approved activities for a project using the soil method. The CER expects that the land manager will demonstrate in an application how their new management practices would fit within one of the activities.
2. For this determination, a management activity is an eligible management activity if it:-
- involves one of the following land management activities:
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- applying nutrients to the land in the form of a synthetic or non-synthetic fertiliser to address a material deficiency;
- applying lime to remediate acid soils;
- applying gypsum to remediate sodic or magnesic soils;
- undertaking new irrigation;
- re-establishing or rejuvenating a pasture by seeding;
- establishing, and permanently maintaining, a pasture where there was previously no pasture, such as on cropland or bare fallow;
- altering the stocking rate, duration or intensity of grazing;
- retaining stubble after a crop is harvested;
- converting from intensive tillage practices to reduced or no tillage practices;
- modifying landscape or landform features to remediate land;
- using mechanical means to add or redistribute soil through the soil profile; and
- is an improvement on the land management activities conducted in the agricultural system during the baseline period such that:
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- at least one of the land management activities is new or materially different from the equivalent land management activity conducted during the baseline period; and
- more carbon can reasonably be expected to be sequestered in that system as a result of carrying out that land management activity; and
- does not involve activities excluded by section 11 or the carrying out of activities restricted by section 12.
This means in practice that the project needs to commit to doing a changed/intensified (new) activity on a defined area of land and that new activity must be likely to sequester more carbon from the atmosphere than was happening previously.(clause b). They must chose from the list of eligible activities in clause a and envisage ways to deliver that on their project area. Lateral thinking may help. Having more than one eligible activity will enable more flexibility.
We are registered advisors with QRIDA’s Approved Advisor Program. This program provides funds to farm managers to get specialised professional advice about undertaking a carbon farming project/s on their land through the Land Restoration Fund.
Get in touch to discuss the fundamentals of how a carbon farming project works, and the LRF competitive grant program. Contact details are available here.
The Natural Capital Announcement
In a second paragraph, the LRF announced a new project, related to the LRF. The announcement was worded as follows:
‘Additionally, the Queensland Government is investing $35 million through the LRF Trust to establish the Queensland Natural Capital Fund. This new fund will create a pathway for ongoing private investment in environment markets—generating commercial and environmental market returns and creating additional environmental, social, economic and First Nations co-benefits.’
For clarity, it is worth starting with a definition of natural capital. It is:
‘… the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.’
The LRF has a mandate to build a carbon farming industry in Queensland over five years. This includes not only lifting awareness of carbon farming opportunities among land managers, but also fostering the development of the necessary support industry at a professional level by directly funding projects aligned to state government priorities.
The LRF is linked to pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as a means of reducing the risks of climate change, under the federal government’s Carbon Farming Initiative. It also links to state social, economic and environmental priorities.
This second announcement suggests that the Queensland government wants to extend the range of options to include direct commercial or philanthropic support for land managers caring for natural capital, and build on the carbon farming community to incorporate other environmental services programs.
There is increasing pressure for land managers to provide evidence to demonstrate that they are responsible natural resources managers. The pressure is both formal, when there are legislated environmental requirements for access to resources for example water, or markets, and informal in the form of community purchasing decisions and community licence to operate.
The time is passing where it is acceptable simply to deny that a business or industry has a negative environmental impact. Having credible assessments of environmental risks and documentation of actions to reduce them is essential, to build community respect. Then malicious or ill-informed comments in the media can be resisted more effectively.
Its time to consider the potential benefits of addressing community concerns about environmental impacts, and taking documented steps to participate in initiatives that are appropriate to your business or industry and significant to the community.
The Good News
With business and governments investing in initiatives to value natural capital, and to support it, there will be increasing opportunities for land managers to attract ecosystem services. Watch this space.
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