Published: 20 Nov 2015

From ABC Online, Matt Brann, 17 November 2015

The future for one of the Northern Territory's longest running carbon farming projects is looking bright, after it secured funding for the next five years through the Federal Government's Emissions Reduction Fund.

The future for one of the Northern Territory's longest running carbon farming projects is looking bright, after it secured funding for the next five years through the Federal Government's Emissions Reduction Fund.

Since 2011, the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) has generated carbon credits from its Fish River Station through a savanna burning project, which reduces the frequency of late season wildfires.

ILC's manager of environment, carbon and heritage, Emma Pethybridge, said the Fish River project was successful in the Government's latest Emissions Reduction Fund auction.

She said the project was now contracted to deliver 115,000 tonnes of carbon abatement for five years, for a price per tonne which could not be disclosed because of commercial reasons.

"What this means for us is we're able to secure funding for a period of five years to cover our costs, and any additional revenue that is achieved goes back into the property management and creating jobs on country and other co-benefits like biodiversity management and cultural protection," she said.

Ms Pethybridge said guaranteed funding over five years meant the project could enjoy some much needed certainty going forward.

"We're able to proceed with certainty and provide the indigenous rangers involved in the project with some job security.

"[However] if there's a change of government next year we could be back to the drawing board in terms of what that might mean to carbon policy going forward," she warned.

"But we'd expect, that any change of government would have to honour any contract that's been entered into under the Emissions Reduction Fund."

Fish River station was not the only savanna burning carbon farming project to receive funding in the latest carbon auction, with contracts also going to the long running West Arnhem fire abatement project, a group of 21 graziers in the Cape York region were successful, as was the fire management project on Conways Station in the Northern Territory.

The Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC) also secured funding for its fire abatement program across some of its Northern Territory and Western Australian cattle stations.

The average price of carbon credits from the government's latest carbon auction was $12.25 per tonne, which Emma Pethybridge said was still a viable price for many carbon farming projects, but admittedly well down on the price Fish River Station received in 2013, when it sold credits directly to Caltex for over $20 a tonne.

"Indigenous savanna burning projects do tend to have higher costs of production compared to other methods because they generally support people living and working on country in remote areas, which is not cheap," said Ms Pethybridge.

"We would ultimately like to see a system in place that recognises and values the important co-benefits of these projects beyond pure emissions reduction, including in Indigenous employment, training and conservation."

A trail-blazer in the field, Fish River was the first Indigenous savanna burning project in Australia to sell Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) on the open carbon trading market.

According to the Federal Government fires across northern Australia produce around 3 per cent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, but in places like the Northern Territory, they account for approximately 40 per cent of the Northern Territory's total emission profile.