Government Finds Way To Pay Farmers For Fixing Country That Mob Never Broke In The First Place

CANBERRA – A new study published in Nature Climate Change has found that Australia’s carbon credit markets systematically reward landholders who restore previously degraded environments while excluding Traditional Owners who have been managing their Country sustainably for tens of thousands of years – a finding that surprised absolutely no one who has ever had to explain Indigenous land management to a policy officer.

The research highlights growing frustration among Traditional Owners who find their well-maintained Country ineligible for carbon credits because there is no measurable “improvement” to sell. Meanwhile pastoralists and farmers whose predecessors cleared and degraded the land can generate credits by replanting what was already there before they arrived.

“So you’re telling me that if my old people had chopped down all the trees we could now get paid to plant them back?” one Traditional Owner asked. “Deadly business model.”

A climate policy expert explained that carbon markets are designed around a concept called “additionality” – meaning you can only earn credits for carbon reductions that would not have happened without the scheme. “Unfortunately sixty thousand years of continuous environmental stewardship counts as the baseline” the expert said. “The system literally cannot reward doing the right thing from the beginning.”

The Federal Government said it was “examining the findings with interest” and was committed to ensuring Indigenous participation in carbon markets. A spokesperson said any reforms would need to go through a “consultation process” though they did not specify whether this was the same consultation process currently sitting behind eleven other consultation processes.

Traditional Owner groups have called for a fundamental redesign of the market to recognise cultural burning and land management as legitimate carbon abatement activities. Industry representatives said they were “open to conversations” but stressed that any changes would need to maintain “market integrity” – a phrase that in this context means “the bit where we get the money.”