Ms Sanderson said some areas bordered conservation land and others were near agricultural properties. Successful proponents would need to be “good neighbours” and take responsibility for fencing and managing fire risk, pests and weeds.

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“I think there’s just enormous benefit all around, and particularly for Aboriginal communities who do live remotely,” she said.

The government plans to release an opportunity statement in the first half of 2022, invite proponents to undertake feasibility studies on individual areas, and after detailed assessment, award tenure in 2023.

The main selection criteria will be the amount of carbon credits likely to be generated, opportunities created for Aboriginal communities and the benefits to the state.

The tenure relies on legislative reforms announced in November that will introduce diversification leases allowing multiple uses of Crown and pastoral land.

Ms Sanderson said she hoped the initial releases of 3 million hectares would be followed by further stages to support large scale carbon farming.

Large-scale operators will be preferred due to the size and multi-decade duration of the commitment, especially those with good relationships with traditional owners.

Ms Sanderson said the WA government recognised that reducing emissions, rather than offsetting them, was the best approach.

“We ultimately want to get to net zero (but) ... with the industry that we have getting to absolute zero is really challenging,” she said.

“We’re also realistic that we need to provide opportunities to offset for those hard-to-abate industries, in particular oil and gas.

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“So I think this is an opportunity for them.”

WA’s two big LNG operators Woodside and Chevron are possible contenders for carbon farming acreage.

In November, the WA Government ordered Chevron’s Gorgon LNG project to buy 5.2 million tonnes of carbon credits after five years of troubled attempts to store CO2 underground. The $US55 billion project had to attempt to bury all the CO2 in the gas flowing to the plant but has stored only about one-third.

Woodside, which operates the Pluto and North West Shelf LNG plants, wrote to WA Premier Mark McGowan in May to request support for accessing carbon offsets to help reduce its net emissions.

The company also asked for support in setting up a hydrogen production and export hub and in October received a large lease in the Kwinana industrial area from the government for its proposed $1 billion H2Perth project.

Both companies may also need to offset emissions from the Wheatstone LNG project.

In early 2019 then Environment Minister Stephen Dawson referred the plant, owned 61 per cent by Chevron and 13 per cent by Woodside, to the WA Environmental Protection Authority for a review of its greenhouse gas emissions.

The intent was to only review a requirement removed by the Barnett Liberal government for Wheatstone to offset CO2 in the reservoir that is a minor part of the plants’ annual emissions of about 3.8 million tonnes.

However, the protracted review may result in much more onerous conditions. In 2020 the EPA adopted a much tougher approach on emissions that has resulted in other projects having to reduce total emissions over time in roughly a straight line towards net zero by 2050.

An EPA spokeswoman said the Authority would apply the new guidelines to its review of Wheatstone, and it expected to finalise and make its report public in early 2022.

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