Estimating carbon budgets: Project outline

The issue of greenhouse gas emissions remains topical in Australia as debate continues over the Kyoto Protocol. The debate is relevant to the grazing industry in the Central Queensland region because properties are both sources and sinks for greenhouse gases. The main sources of emissions are clearing vegetation. cultivating soils, and running beef cattle. The main ways of preventing emissions are to protect remnant vegetation from being cleared. Sinks can generated by allowing regrnwth or vegetation thickening to occur.While there is ongoing work to measure carbon emissions at a national level, there has been little work to estimate emissions and sinks at the property level. This infonnation will be important if landbolders were to ever become more responsible for reducing emissions or sequestering carbon. If carbon offsets were ever to become possible for some land management options, then measurement and verification of carbon stocks at the property level will become very important. A collaborative project has been establisbed to provide some estimates of carbon budgets on grazing pmperties in the Central Highlands and Desert Uplands regions of Central Queensland. Key funding comes from the Greenhouse Challenge program of the Australian Greenhouse Office. The partners in the project include two of the key stakebolder groups involved in regional planning and natoral resource management issues, being the Desert Uplands reg and the Central Highlands Regional Resource Use Planning Project. Other partners in the project include the Stanwell Corporation, Central Queensland University, the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Primary Industries. In this preliminary report, an outline of some of the issues involved in the project is presented, together with an overview of the possible ways that might be used to estimate and verify carbon stocks.