Carbon abatement company Salubris has revealed a deal with traditional owners in the Goldfields to generate credits and secure land tenure.
Carbon credit company Salubris has revealed a deal with traditional owners in the Goldfields to generate carbon credits and secure land tenure.
Salubris said it had has partnered with the Marlinyu Ghoorlie peoples in an exclusive agreement on carbon and biodiversity that sought to create long term generational wealth for the traditional owners by through land access, along with the development of large scale management of fire and pests.
Established by Argonaut founder Eddie Rigg and his colleague Peter Balsarini, Salubris intends to generate and sell Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to emitters seeking offsets.
The company said partnership would utilise the newly established diversification lease framework developed by the state government.
It said under the agreement new leases will be applied for and held in the name of the MG people, creating large tracts of land entirely controlled by MG.
While markedly different from the initial deal Salubris struck, acquiring a pastoral station which it has largely destocked, both have the objective of securing land tenure for at least 25 years and then protecting vegetation as a form of abatement which earns carbon credits.
Salubris spokesman Brendon Grylls, the former Nationals WA leader and state cabinet minister who is a director of Salubris subsidiary Emissions Abatement Solutions (WA), said it made sense to work with traditional owners to develop better land management techniques.
Salubris said the MG claim area encompasses part of the highly biodiverse Great Western Woodlands.
“The projects will include the minimisation and management of wildfire, with a focus on the protection of old growth eucalypt forest, the regeneration of former pastoral land through the management of wild cattle and other feral animals, and the maximising biodiversity and caring for country through the establishment of a MG ranger and land management program,” the company said.
Beyond this deal, the company was in the process of securing as much as 1 million additional hectares of pastoral leases, on top of the 200,000ha Gindalbie station, 60km north-east of Kalgoorlie on the edge of the Great Western Woodlands, which it acquired for $6.75 million.
Salubris is also expecting to go to capital markets to raise $25 million, adding to $10 million already raised, having decided to tap ESG-focused funds for its unique product rather than an initial public offering which had been proposed for around this time.
