NAILSMA Carbon Project—more than greenhouse gas emissions abatement

The North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) Carbon Project integrates Indigenous knowledge with western science to enhance Indigenous livelihoods and achieve multiple environmental outcomes.

This project not only focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in tropical savannas of northern Australia but also on the social, economic and environmental aspirations of the region’s Indigenous communities.   

Before the arrival of European settlers, the tropical savannas of northern Australia were sustainably managed by Indigenous people. One of the more significant impacts of European settlement was the mass movement of Indigenous people from their traditional estates to other settlements. 

This has led to a critical gap in cultural and social connection with the land, including the transmission of traditional knowledge of fire management in tropical savannas. This has increased the vulnerability of savannas to large, highly destructive wildfires. Such fires disturb entire savanna ecosystems and contribute to three per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Importantly NAILSMA and its Carbon Project partners have developed savanna burning emissions accounting methodology, which is the first approved by the Australian Government under the Carbon Farming Initiative. This is a major step in assisting Indigenous land managers in northern Australia to access developing carbon markets in Australia and overseas. 

The project’s controlled savanna burning methodology achieves emissions abatement by reducing the area that is burnt each year and/or shifting the seasonality of the burning from the late dry season (LDS) towards the early dry season (EDS). Compared to late season fires, the early season fires are lower in intensity, more patchy, have a lower tendency to spread and consume less vegetation as fuel. As a result of low fuel consumption, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions released by the fires per unit area are reduced. Under this methodology only methane and nitrous oxide emissions released by fire can be reduced, while the carbon dioxide released by the fire is reabsorbed by the landscape in next growing season.

The NAILSMA’s Carbon Project was born out of the successful West Arnhem Fire Management Agreement (WAFMA) and subsequent work on the Western Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project (WALFA). This and subsequent fire abatement projects are owned and driven by traditional Aboriginal land owners and managers with strong funding, research and partnerships.  

NAILSMA members and project partners are assisting Indigenous land owners in developing five new landscape-level savanna fire management projects focusing on greenhouse gas abatement and trading opportunities in northern Australia. These five projects are located in the north Kimberley region of Western Australia, in the Northern Territory, in the Gulf of Carpentaria and in western Cape York in Queensland.

In addition to carbon offset opportunities, the NAILSMA Carbon Project hopes to achieve other social and environmental benefits including opportunities to reduce community welfare dependency and improve Indigenous community well-being and enhancing biodiversity conservation in savanna ecosystems. To achieve this, NAILSMA works with the following project partners: Kimberley Land Council, Northern Land Council, Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation and Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation, as well as government, local organisations, and private sector investors. 

The Carbon Project is supported by NAILSMA through funding from the Australian Government’s Caring for our Country program and philanthropic and private-sector sources, as well as in its research through Bushfires NT and CSIRO.

Read the ‘NAILSMA Carbon Project 2010—Social Program Outline’ report in full: www.nailsma.org.au/downloads/carbon_social_program_nailsma_lowres.pdf

Sources: 

NAILSMA Carbon Project 2010—Social Program Outline, NAILSMA 2009. Visit www.nailsma.org.au/downloads/carbon_social_program_nailsma_lowres.pdf

Australian Government's Carbon Farming Initiative offset methodologies under consideration: www.climatechange.gov.au/en/government/initiatives/carbon-farming-initative/methodology-development/methodologies-under-consideration.aspx

Visit the NAILSMA Carbon Project website: www.nailsma.org.au/projects/indigenous_carbon_abatement.html.