Carbon Neutral awarded $441,000 biodiversity grant

Carbon Neutral, an Australian environmental not-for-profit, will receive $441,000 in funding for a conservation project from the federal government’s Biodiversity Fund.

The grant will support an iconic community engagement conservation project in the Moresby Ranges, a unique and significant landscape backdrop to the regional centre of Geraldton in the northern agricultural region of WA. The revegetation work and sale of the resulting biodiverse carbon offsets in the area will not only restore a native ecosystem to its natural inherent beauty, but also create training and employment opportunities for the local Indigenous community.

“We are delighted to have received this grant and excited to start work on this pioneering biodiversity conservation project, which will have unprecedented positive outcomes for Australia’s rural landscape and the local community,” commented Ray Wilson, CEO Carbon Neutral.

“We’re celebrating our 10th year at Carbon Neutral and having developed and managed over 100 revegetation projects in Australia. We see this grant as recognition of our longstanding commitment and environmental expertise in Australian biodiverse revegetation projects.

“This project will demonstrate to the wider community how the emerging carbon market can fund revegetation of degraded farmland for ecological restoration and facilitate Indigenous training and employment opportunities.

“Carbon Neutral is working on a management plan with the property owner, Forbes Spillman, who has for many years sought to revegetate the property and ultimately have it converted to a regional park.”

All of the projects supported by the Biodiversity Fund will assist key environmental projects - with a major focus on the revegetation, rehabilitation and restoration of more than 18 million hectares of Australian landscape over the next six years.