Austin Downs.

Native Vegetation Asset Account.

Environmental Account ID: AU00067
Environmental Asset: Native Vegetation
Asset Account ID: AU00067V1
Registration date: 18 June 2024
Certification date: 11 March 2025
Certification level: Independent Audit (Limited Assurance)
Purpose: Identify, document, and communicate the natural values of Austin Downs, facilitating the sustainable management of the biodiverse pastoral lease.
Current land use: Pastoral
Area: 167, 570 ha
Method: AfN-METHOD-NV-10

Asset Account snapshot.

Asset summary - baseline.

Asset statement.

  • 18 June 2024 - Registration date

  • 11 March 2025 - Certification date

Significant outcomes.

Petrophile pauciflora is a flowering plant species in the Proteaceae family, endemic to the western regions of Western Australia. We also found Santalum lanceolatum on the property which is interesting based on the fact that this species is heavily harvested in the landscape. Another species which was impressive was Lawrencia helmsii, also known as dunna dunna, a species that occurs on subsaline sand or gypsaceous clay soils in specific, highly localized habitats. While it is not currently endangered, it is vulnerable due to its limited range. Bluebush, Saltbush, and Samphire with tall Acacia shrublands have the lowest sub-asset Econd at 70.9, while Greenstone Country has the highest at 81.4.

Limitations & disclosures.

Uncertainty in scaled ground layer indicators

The separation of ground layer indicators (native herbaceous, non-native herbaceous, litter, prostrate shrubs) involved combining field observations made within 1x1m quadrats, with drone derived estimates of ground layer cover (see related excel file for more detail). This introduces uncertainty due to inaccuracies inherent to cover classification, spatial heterogeneity in ground layer cover, and the mismatch in observational resolution between field observations and drone imagery. As a result, many ground layer observations, particularly litter, appear higher in the drone imagery when compared to the benchmark values (established by estimating ground cover for different sub-assets). Future expert elicitation work may benefit from direct elicitation based on observations of drone imagery.

Coarse woody debris

The computer vision model developed to segment and classify coarse woody debris was not sufficiently accurate to calculate this indicator. As an alternative, this indicator was calculated by digitising (using a line draw tool in Drone-Deploy) all of the visible coarse woody debris within 0.1-hectare sub-plots for each of the sites. The length of each of the lines was then summed, and multiplied by 10, to provide an estimate of the length of coarse woody debris per hectare.

Environmental markets.

Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme project, registered with the Australian Clean Energy Regulator. More information can be found here:

Environmental Account.

Learn more about this Environmental Account.