Climate Friendly and our carbon farming partners collect an enormous amount of environmental, carbon and land management data, as part of our rigorous feasibility assessments when planning and implementing a land-based carbon farming project which can span a 35-year period. There is a significant opportunity to share this data to support ongoing research, continuous improvements of national carbon, environmental and agricultural monitoring systems; and to provide information to land managers to aid decisions on managing their property.

In the case of carbon farming projects, this data is tightly linked to privacy laws and the livelihoods of individual land managers. Therefore, there are careful legal, ethical and technological considerations in enabling access to this information which would provide multiple benefits while also protecting confidentiality.

Advances in data infrastructure technology mean it is now possible to develop a National Integrated Land Database with a data discovery portal. This would give access to agreements and usage licenses with private organisations or individuals able to opt-into sharing their information to achieve multiple environmental, carbon and agricultural benefits.

This short video helps explains how the database could work and how governments, conservation organisations and agricultural producers might all contribute information and obtain benefits.