Rural Queensland encouraged to participate in CFI

The Queensland Government has released a document to support rural landholders wishing to participate in the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI).

'Carbon Farming in Rural Queensland' summarises the Queensland Government’s actions and policies put in place to support and encourage Queensland landholder participation in the emerging carbon market. The Queensland Government has introduced a raft of measures to ensure Queensland landholders are in a position to benefit from the outset. 'Carbon Farming in Rural Queensland' outlines Queensland’s role in shaping the CFI, steps it has taken to help the rural sector prepare, and the future actions the government has committed to undertake.

With the CFI representing a potentially significant long-term source of income for Queensland’s rural sector, the government is keen to ensure that landholders understand the scheme and actions being taken to help them get involved so stakeholders can make informed decisions about opportunities in their region.

The document profiles a range of actions aimed at maximising biodiversity outcomes from carbon investment, including actions to help Queensland attract incentives and investments under the Australian Government's $946 million Biodiversity Fund.

It also outlines the government’s commitment to balancing carbon forestry with traditional agriculture, including measures to protect the state's best-value cropping land from large-scale carbon forests while ensuring that farmers on strategic cropping land can still benefit from small-scale carbon forestry activities.

Furthermore, the document recognises and highlights the opportunities for Indigenous participation in the CFI and its potential as a means of addressing Indigenous disadvantage.

In addition to investments in carbon research, including a new world-class research hub to investigate ways to reduce methane from cattle, the Queensland Government is working to finalise a ground-breaking method for counting emissions reductions from managed regrowth.

The Queensland Government will also submit to the Australian Government its draft policy on incorporating managed regrowth into the CFI, which will provide landholders with a cost-effective opportunity to improve and earn revenue on marginal or otherwise unprofitable land. With more cleared land suitable for managed regrowth than any other state, making this a commercial reality is a key action in 'Carbon Farming in Rural Queensland', and will mark the delivery of almost three years of policy work.

Read 'Carbon Farming in Rural Queensland' in full.