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One of the largest types of carbon offset projects the Australian government is using to meet climate change targets and reduce carbon in the atmosphere is failing to do so, new research has shown. The findings are published in The Rangeland Journal.

The projects aim to regenerate native forests across large parts of Australia, but analysis shows most of the selected areas have never had forests, are unsuitable for forest regeneration and are not producing the increase in tree canopy cover that projects are being credited for.

Australian human-induced forest regeneration (HIR) projects are the largest pure carbon removal nature-based offset type in the world. They are supposed to be regenerating permanent, even-aged native forests across millions of hectares of Australia's dry outback, primarily by reducing grazing pressure from livestock and feral animals.

The projects cover 42 million hectares—an area significantly larger than Japan—and, to date, they have received more than 45 million Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) (30% of all ACCUs issued under the Australian carbon offset scheme), worth approximately $1 billion.

New research conducted by 10 leading researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Haizea Analytics has found extreme levels of non-compliance with key regulatory requirements in 116 of these human-induced regeneration (HIR) projects, and that the projects have had little impact on tree cover and carbon sequestration.

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