AU2011203027A1 - Methods and systems for obtaining and estimating emission reduction benefits from management of savanna and agricultural fires - Google Patents

Abstract

Burning of savannas in Northern Australia releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG). Recent work has indicated that a change in the burning pattern from late dry season to early dry season 5 can reduce the GHG emissions. Methods and systems for obtaining and estimating emission reduction benefits from management of savanna and agricultural fires are described. In the case that there multiple regions in a geographic region, each with a different owner, the method includes entering into agreements with the owners to perform fire management actions such as back burning or active fire fighting, over the multiple regions and then performing the actions and estimating the GHG emission D reductions that result. The carbon credits or value from the sale of such credits is then distributed to the different owners and management entity. This collective approach has benefits by more efficient fire managing a wide area over time generating greater returns compared with individual actions. A method is also described for determining the optimum set of fire management actions to perform for a geographic area. The method includes estimating a first set of management actions, modelling their 5 effect and resultant GHG emission reduction, and then repeating these steps a number of times to find an optimum or best set of actions to perform. Such a tool can be provided to fire managers to select what specific fire management actions to perform in a given season or season. entering into one or more agreements with the 110 respective owners of a plurality of the plurality of sub regions in the first geographic region to perform fire management actions on the geographic region during a management time period in return for entitlement to at least a portion of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits or value derived from the creation and sale of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits obtained based upon performance of the fire management actions 120 performing a set of fire management actions in at least one of the plurality of sub-regions during a first time period, wherein the first time period is at least a portion of the management time period 130 obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual Green House Gas (GHG) emissions for the geographic region for the first time period estimating the reduction in GHG emissions that may be 140 attributed to the set of fire management actions implemented during the first time period compared to the business-as-usual estimate obtaining at least one valuable carbon offset credit or 150 emission permit from an issuing authority for provision into a compliance or voluntary market for trading, wherein the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is based upon the estimated reduction in GHG emissions associated with the set of fire management actions performed in at least one of the plurality of sub-regions during the first time period and the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit, or economic value based upon the sale of the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is distributed to one or more entitled parties based upon the one or more agreements Figure 1

Description

NorthWest Carbon Pty Ltd AUSTRALIA PATENTS ACT 1990 STANDARD PATENT SPECIFICATION FOR THE INVENTION ENTITLED: "METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR OBTAINING AND ESTIMATING EMISSION REDUCTION BENEFITS FROM MANAGEMENT OF SAVANNA AND AGRICULTURAL FIRES" This invention is described in the following statement: PRIORITY DOCUMENTS The present application claims priority from Australian Provisional Patent Application No. 2010903717 entitled "System and method for estimation, validation and verification of emission reduction benefits from management of savanna and agricultural fires" and filed on 5 18 August 2011. The entire content of this application is hereby incorporated by reference. INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE The following publications are referred to in the present application and their contents are herby incorporated by reference in their entirety: 10 Australian Methodology for the Estimation of Greenhouse Gas emissions and sinks 2006, Australian Department of Climate Change, December 2007; Jeremy Russell-Smith et al, "Improving estimates of savanna burning emissions for greenhouse accounting in northern Australia: limitations, challenges, applications", International Journal of Wildland Fire 2009, 18, 1-18. 15 FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to green house gas emissions. In a particular form the present invention relates to a method for creation of economic value based on generating carbon credit or emission permits or estimating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from 20 performing fire management actions. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Climate change, and in particular climate change due to anthropogenic or human activities is a current and growing concern. To address anthropogenic climate change through reduction 25 of green house gas emissions the Kyoto Protocol was developed under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The protocol requires signatories to implement measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide and allows signatories to achieve reductions through mechanisms such as the creation of carbon credits and associated registries to allow banking or trading of 30 emission reductions. Specifically the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce the collective greenhouse gas emissions of developed (Annex 1) countries such as Australia by, on average, 5 per cent below 1990 levels during 2008 to 2012. The protocol was initially signed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, and Australia became a signatory on 3 December 2007, with ratification coming into effect on 11 March 2008. Australia's target is to limit greenhouse gas emissions over the first 35 commitment period to 108 per cent of the levels they were in 1990. 2 Agreements and Treaties such as Kyoto have enabled the development of the new field in carbon trading as a way to monetize reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by defining a unit that is measurable and directly related to the emission problem. Further as the unit is real, permanent and verifiable, it can be traded between entities that create them and those that 5 need them to balance their emissions, thereby creating a financial incentive to reduce emissions for both credit creators and emitters. Carbon offset trading units and emission permits are now an internationally recognized tradable unit (and are thus valuable). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 10 Change (UNFCCC) and instruments that it oversees, such as the Kyoto Protocol (and subsequent agreements that aim for multilateral or bilateral greenhouse gas emission reduction targets), have established a market whereby those that reduce emissions through project based activities in developing (Annexe I) and developed (Annexe II) nations are able to monetize the emission reductions delivered by specific project activities. Clean 15 Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) projects can be operated in countries without and with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, respectively, with oversight by either the UNFCCC (for CDM projects) or host nation governments (for JI projects). Carbon offset credits generated by CDM projects are termed "Certified Emission Reductions" (CERs) and those generated by JI projects are known as "Emission Reduction 20 Units" (ERUs). CERs and ERUs are fungible for use by governments or private parties with emission reduction targets allocated by the Kyoto Protocol, or regional or national targets developed thorough Kyoto compliant emission trading schemes, such as the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The oversight by the UNFCCC of CER and ERU projects includes validation against specified rules for project development, and verification 25 of emission reduction claims by project participants, as well as issuance of carbon offset credits where requirements have been met. The proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia would have made it possible to develop both carbon offset credits and emission permits (Australian Emission Units AEUs) 30 available through an oversight and project administration program. While this scheme has effectively been replaced by arguments for a direct carbon price as a tax, the emerging Federal Government Carbon Farming Initiative Scheme is intended to play a similar role in the creation of emission reduction units or carbon credits. Regardless of the existence of government mandated schemes, independent organisations may create independents sets of 35 standards for the examination of data, records and activities that may be related to the creation of valuable emissions reduction permits or carbon credits. Private businesses may unilaterally act to assign value to actions and activities that create value for actions that reduce emissions, 3 for example, through changed fire management process in savannas, and to claim the benefits in the absence of government or independent external validation of the amount of reduction achieved by the proposed activities. 5 It is also useful to note that there exist two markets for carbon credits. Where a national or regional government mandates for emissions reductions through legislation and subjects private entities or business sectors to achieve emissions reductions, this is known as a compliance market, and the use of carbon offset credits or emission permits is specified in the enabling legislation. In such a case, specified carbon offset credits or emission permits may be 10 used to meet mandated emission reduction targets, such as the use of CERs and ERUs in the EU ETS. The other circumstance where carbon offset credits may be used is when an entity voluntarily purchases carbon offset credits for use in offsetting their quantified greenhouse gas emissions for a specified period: the voluntary carbon offset market. In Australia, the voluntary carbon market is likely to be given structure by the National Carbon Offset 15 Standard, administered by Low Carbon Australia. Given the nature of the voluntary carbon market, carbon credits may be sourced from carbon offset project activities that have not necessarily met the requirements of the UNFCCC for carbon offset creation. However, compliance carbon offset credits and emission permits can be used for voluntary purposes, while it is generally seen that the inverse is not true (i.e. carbon offset credits generated under 20 recognised voluntary offset standards, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) are not fungible with government mandated compliance schemes). However, in Australia, the distinction may blur into the future. As project types that were identified as "voluntary" with regards to the emission source not being counted by the Kyoto Protocol, the end of the Kyoto Protocol and the lack of a subsequent replacement may allow Governments to modify the 25 consideration of the use of both voluntary and compliance units for use by organisations in meeting their targets for emission reductions. Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries are allocated Kyoto units called assigned amount units (AAUs) on the basis of their initial assigned amount, where each AAU signifies an allowance 30 to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent. Each developed country signatory is required to create a designated national authority tasked with creation and management of a countries greenhouse gas inventory and which must submit an annual report of inventories of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from sources and removals from sinks. In Australia, the Department of Climate Change is the designated national authority and has created the 35 Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU). The Department of Climate Change calculated the baseline amount as 2,957,579,143 AAUs, and the method by which this baseline amount was calculated, is described in Australia's Initial Report under the Kyoto 4 Protocol available at http://www.climatechange.gov.au/publications/intemational/unfccc report.aspx. The baseline amount was calculated based on emissions from sectors such as energy, 5 industrial processes, agriculture, waste and land use change. One source of greenhouse gas emissions that is recognised and must be accounted for in greenhouse gas emission inventories under the Kyoto Protocol is greenhouse gas emissions arising from burning of savannas (or more specifically the release of non-C02 gases from the burning of the biomass present on the savannas'). The definition of Savannas in the Kyoto Protocol is tropical and 10 sub-tropical formations with continuous grass cover occasionally interrupted by trees and shrubs. In the Australian context this definition covers much of Northern Australia, as well as grasslands in Southern Australia and moorlands in Tasmania. Burning of savannas' in northern Australia is quite significant with the extent and 15 contribution of biomass burning from Australian savannas typically ranked second or third after Africa. Burning of savannas releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases such as Methane, Nitrous Oxide, as well as other smaller amounts of other gases such as Carbon Monoxide and non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC). Carbon Dioxide emissions from burning of savannas is not accounted for under Kyoto based on the 20 assumption that all the Carbon Dioxide released during burning of savannas during the dry season is then reabsorbed by plants regrowing during the subsequent wet season. Under the Kyoto protocol, emissions of Methane and Nitrous Oxide (and not Carbon Dioxide) from burning of savanna is recognised and may be include in national inventories. 25 As recommended by the IPCC (1997) all fires in Australian savannas and temperate grasslands are included in the inventory. The 2009 National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/-/media/publications/greenhouse report/national-greenhouse-gas-inventory-pdf.ashx) included all fires in Australian savannas 30 and temperate grasslands except for those from burning of trees and shrubs associated with the clearing of temperate grasslands or savanna, fires in native ecosystems in which shrubby rather than grassy fuel predominates (e.g. heathlands and Eucalypt forests) and burning of slash and litter prior to re-afforestation (forest regeneration). The 2009 inventory estimated that savanna burning had increased by over 75% from 1990 (6.6Mt) to 2007 (11.6Mt) and 35 was responsible for approximately 2% of the total emissions in 2007. 5 In northern Australia the climate is characterised by a wet season from January to April and a dry season from May to December. Fires tend not to bum during the wet season, during which there is rapid regrowth. Studies have indicated that fires burning early in the dry season (May to July/August) tend to produce less greenhouse gas emissions than fires burning later in the 5 dry season (August to December). This is thought to be due to the residual dampness and reduced wind in the early dry season which tends to limit the intensity (thus plants are incompletely burnt) as well as the extent of such fires. Late season fires consume more of the available fuel as they tend to move from the grass layer to tree canopy which provides additional fuel (and emissions). 10 Whilst the basic science indicates that a change in fire management practice can be used to generate emission reductions compared to a business-as-usual situation, there remain a range of problems to be addressed in putting this idea into practice in an efficient manner. Fire management can be performed over a wide geographic scale from individual properties to 15 continental scale. Often there may be multiple land owners, lease holders or other interested parties, and thus determining where and how often to bum can be a complex issue. Similarly ownership of any emission reductions can be complicated in such scenarios. In order to develop commercial trading of carbon offsets credits or emission permits derived from reductions in GHG emissions, there is a need to develop various methods and tools to assist 20 the various stakeholders to more optimally perform fire management activities. It is an object of the invention to address at least some of these problems, or at least provide a useful alternative. 25 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for obtaining a valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit based on implementation of a fire management plan in a geographic region, the geographic region including a plurality of sub regions, the method including: 30 a) entering into a one or more agreements with the respective owners of a plurality of the plurality of sub regions in the first geographic region to perform fire management actions on the geographic region during a management time period in return for entitlement to at least a portion of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits or value derived from the creation and sale of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission 35 permits obtained based upon performance of the fire management actions; 6 b) performing a set of fire management actions in the geographic region during a first time period, wherein the first time period is at least a portion of the management time period; c) obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual Green House Gas (GHG) 5 emissions for the geographic region for the first time period; d) estimating the reduction in GHG emissions that may be attributed to the set of fire management actions implemented during the first time period compared to the business-as-usual estimate; e) obtaining at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit from 10 an issuing authority for provision into a compliance or voluntary market for trading, wherein the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is based upon the estimated reduction in GHG emissions associated with the set of fire management actions performed in the first geographic region and the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit, or economic value based upon the sale of the at least one valuable carbon offset credit 15 or emission permit is distributed to one or more entitled parties based upon the one or more agreements. The management time period could be a single season or year, or span multiple seasons or years. The first time period may be a portion of the management period or it may be the same 20 as the management time period. For example the first time period may be a year and the management time period may be several years. Fire management actions may be controlled burning, back burning or cool burning to create fire breaks and/or to suppress the build up of biomass, or responsive fire fighting including maintaining and deploying fire fighting assets to actively fight naturally occurring or other uncontrolled fires to stop or reduce their severity. 25 According to further aspects, the set of fire management actions may only be performed in selected sub regions of the plurality of sub-regions in the geographic region during the first time period and the entitled parties based upon the one or more agreements includes one or more owners of sub regions in which fire management actions were not performed during the 30 first time period. That is the agreements may be structured so that offset credits or emission permits are distributed annually to all owners irrespective of the extent (if any) of fire management activities performed on their land during the previous year. This has the benefit that more effective management of an entire geographic region may be performed over the extended management time period. This changed management approach may take on the form 35 of a Managed Investment Scheme in which the responsible entity enters into agreements with the land holders, performs fire management activities (or contracts out such work) and claims at least a portion of (or all), or a portion (or all) of the sale of, any offset credits or emission 7 permits derived from the fire management activities for distribution to scheme investors. These may include the land holders/owners and/or other parties. According to a further aspect the set of fire management actions performed may be based 5 upon historical data such as records of areas burnt in past seasons, analysis of satellite images, etc. According to a further aspect the estimate of the reduction in GHG emissions may be obtained from computationally modelling the fire management actions performed during the 10 management time period. This may be based on a statistical model and may include computational image analysis to identify and classify the location, time and extent of fires occurring in the geographic region. According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for 15 determining a set of fire management actions to be performed in a geographic area during a management time period to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions, said method including: a) obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual GHG emission for the geographic area; b) proposing a set of fire management actions to be performed during the 20 management time period for the geographic area; c) estimating the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area by comparing a computational estimate of the GHG emissions based upon the performing the proposed set of fire management actions during the management time period and the calculated business-as-usual GHG emissions; and 25 d) repeating steps b) and c) a plurality of times to determine a plurality of sets of management actions and associated estimates of the likely GHG emissions; e) providing at least one set of management actions to a user and the associated estimate of the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area during the management time period based upon a predetermined selection criteria. 30 The management time period may be a single season, year, or multiple years. The geographic area need not be contiguous and may be formed from disjoint or separate areas of land. Further the geographic area may have a plurality of sub-regions, each with a different owner. The sub-region may be a contiguous region, or it may be formed from a plurality of disjoint 35 (unconnected) portions. 8 The predetermined criteria used to select the set of management actions provided to a user may be default criteria, such as maximising the GHG emission reductions for the geographic area or it may be more complex criteria and may be specified by the user. 5 According to a further aspect, the geographic area includes a plurality of sub-regions, and estimating the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area includes estimating the likely GHG emissions reductions for each of the sub-regions, and the predetermined selection criteria is based upon maximising the GHG emission reductions of at least one of the plurality of sub-regions. This may be useful if each sub-region is owned by a different owner, in which 10 case management actions can be performed to preferentially benefit one or more parties. This could be achieved by associating weighting factors with each sub-region which can be applied to the estimate of emission reductions associated with each sub region to obtain a weighted emission reductions total for the geographic area. 15 In a further aspect the step of proposing a set of fire management actions is performed by a user by selecting one or more areas on a map of the geographic area. Alternatively the step of proposing a set of fire management actions is performed by computational analysis of data associated with the geographic area. The computation analysis may include analysis of historical information on past fires in the geographic area and/or image analysis of images of 20 the geographic area. The above methods may be provided in the form of a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein, the computer readable program code containing instructions adapted to be executed by a computer to implement the method of the 25 first aspect. Additionally or alternatively the method may be embodied in a computer program product or an apparatus comprising a memory and processor configured to implement the above methods. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 30 Illustrative embodiments of the present invention will be discussed with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein: FIGURE 1 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining a valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit based on implementation of a fire management plan in a geographic region, the geographic region including a plurality of sub regions according to an embodiment of the 35 present invention; 9 FIGURE 2 is a flowchart of a method for determining a set of fire management actions to be performed in a geographic region during a management time period to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIGURE 3 is representation of a computer system implementing a method according to an 5 embodiment of the present invention; FIGURE 4 is representation of a geographic region; FIGURE 5 is representation of an image of the geographic region of Figure 4 at a first time point; and FIGURE 6 is representation of an image of the geographic region of Figure 4 at a second time 10 point. DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION Illustrative embodiments of the invention will be now be described. FIGURE 1 is a flowchart 100 of a method for obtaining a valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit based on 15 implementation of a fire management plan in a geographic region, the geographic region including a plurality of sub regions according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIGURE 2 is a flowchart 200 of a method for determining a set of fire management actions to be performed in a geographic region during a management time period to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to an embodiment of the present invention. These valuable 20 carbon offset credit or emission permit (also referred to as GHG emission reduction units or credits) may be those issued by the Australian Government or by other relevant issuing authorities (whether government or commercial). The illustrative embodiments will focus on fire management of savannas on the basis that 25 savannas are presently considered to be the dominant source of green house gas (GHG) emissions associated with burning of biomass in Australia. However it is to be understood that the methodology could equivalently be applied to management of other types of biomass in which it is possible to associate GHG emission reductions with management actions. For example it could be applied where there is a change of practices where biomass is normally 30 burnt for management purposes like pre-harvesting burning of sugarcane, stubble and trash reduction. To assist in understanding the present invention, the underlying methodology will be discussed without focussing on exactly how each method step is performed. However as will 35 become apparent various steps are required to be performed computationally, and as such they could be performed using software, hardware or a combination of the two. Embodiments of the invention could also be provided on computer usable medium which includes computer 10 readable program code adapted to execute the method. Alternatively apparatus could be provided including at least a processor and a memory, the memory containing instructions to be executed by the processor (or by multiple processors). Also various embodiment of the invention may involve user input or interaction with third parties such as sending or receiving 5 of information. Such steps may be performed manually and/or electronically using standard or proprietary protocols, depending upon the context of the step and the nature of the third parties system the method is interacting with. FIGURE 1 is a flowchart 100 of a method for obtaining a valuable carbon offset credit or 10 emission permit based on implementation of a fire management plan in a geographic region, the geographic region including a plurality of sub regions according to an embodiment of the present invention. As will be discussed in more detail below the method broadly includes a first step 110 of entering into one or more agreements with the respective owners of a plurality of the plurality of sub regions in the first geographic region to perform fire 15 management actions on the geographic region during a management time period in return for entitlement to at least a portion of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits obtained based upon performance of the fire management actions. At step 120 a set of fire management actions are performed in at least one of the plurality of sub-regions during a first time period, wherein the first time period is at least a portion of the management time period. 20 At step 130 an estimate is obtained of the business-as-usual Green House Gas (GHG) emissions for the geographic region for the first time period and at step 140 an estimate of the reduction in GHG emissions that may be attributed to the set of fire management actions implemented during the first time period compared to the business-as-usual estimate is obtained. Finally at step 150 at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is 25 obtained from an issuing authority for provision into a compliance or voluntary market for trading. The at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is based upon the estimated reduction in GHG emissions associated with the set of fire management actions performed in the at least one of the plurality of sub-regions and the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is distributed to one or more entitled parties, or is sold 30 and the economic value (profit) and distributed, based upon the one or more agreements. The management time period could be a single season or year, or span multiple seasons or years. The first time period may be a portion of the management period or it may be the same as the management time period. For example the first time period may be a year and the 35 management time period may be several years. Fire management actions may be controlled burning, back burning or cool burning to create fire breaks and/or to suppress the build up of biomass, or responsive fire fighting including maintaining and deploying fire fighting assets 11 to actively fight naturally occurring or other uncontrolled fires to stop or reduce their severity. Selection of what areas to bum may be based on analysis of areas burnt in past seasons or past natural fires or other historical data. 5 This method can thus be used to obtain carbon offset credit or emission permit (collectively referred to as GHG emission reduction units) after fire management actions have been performed, such as at the start of the wet season in the case of a savanna project, or at some designated time to allow entitled parties to claim emission reductions resulting from the fire management actions that have been performed (whether by them or by others). The 10 appropriate information can be obtained to show additionality of the fire management actions, that is the source of GHG emission reduction units (i.e. carbon offset credits or emission permit) are one that is created beyond the business as usual activity. Also appropriate information can be obtained or input to establish the ownership of the land and chain of entitlement of the GHG emission reduction units. This may be sourced from legal contracts or 15 agreements between land owners, lease holders, and/or land or fire management entities, along with any entities to which it has been agreed that emission reductions are to be transferred to. Establishing the legal ownership and chain of entitlement is an important step in the overall process to ensure issuance of valid GHG emission reduction units and appropriate distribution to relevant parties. 20 Establishing one or more agreements between a party performing the fire management action or a party contracting a management agent (collectively referred to as the management party) and the individual owners provides flexibility and enables more optimal generation of the benefits of fire management activities. The management party may be independent of the 25 owners or it may be include one or more of the owners. A single agreement could be signed between the management party and multiple owners, or the management party could enter into separate agreements with each owner or groups of owners. The one or more agreements may utilise a variety of distribution agreements. For example the management party may pay a lump sum to the owners for all the rights (entitlement) to any carbon offset credits or 30 emission permits generated from over a management period (which may be several years). Alternatively the benefits could be distributed annually or be based on a royalty of the income generated from the sale price of any carbon offset credits or emission permits. The agreement may outline a distribution scheme for any profits generated through performing the management activities based upon the relative sizes or relative involvement of the different 35 parties. Different arrangements could be agreed between different owners. The agreements could specify that the carbon offset credits or emission reduction permits to be issued to directly to the owners of the land but that at a least a portion of the sale (ie profit or economic 12 value) of such credits is distributed to the management party in return for performing or managing the fire management activities. As the management period is typically multiple years, and longer than the season in which fire management actions are performed and claimed, the agreements can specify distribution of benefits from a single year to all parties 5 who have entered agreements irrespective of whether actions were performed on their land during that year. This allows the benefit to be spread out over owners (ie over a wide geographic region) as well as over time. In relation to the fire management actions it is desirable that the actions are verifiable. That is 10 the process leading to generation of carbon offset credits or emission permits are recorded in a manner that can be verified by an independent, third party audit. This may include application of various standards, details of baseline and emission calculations, such the model or scientific method utilised, and any validation measurements or analysis. Preferably a scientifically robust model will be utilised. 15 FIGURE 2 is a flowchart 200 of a method for determining a set of fire management actions to be performed in a geographic region or area during a management time period to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions. The method broadly includes the steps of obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual GHG emission for the geographic region or area 210. The next two 20 steps include proposing a set of fire management actions to be performed during the management time period for the geographic region or area 220 and estimating the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic region by comparing a computational estimate of the GHG emissions based upon the performing the proposed set of fire management actions during the management time period and the calculated business-as-usual GHG emissions. The 25 previous two steps (220, 230) are then repeated a plurality of times to determine a plurality of sets of management actions and associated estimates of the likely GHG emissions 240. Finally at step 250 at least one set of management actions are provided to a user and the associated estimate of the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic region or area during the management time period based upon a predetermined selection criteria. 30 The above method may thus be implemented prior performing fire management actions to determine what actions are likely to result in the greatest emission reductions. The management time period may be a single season, year, or multiple years, and accordingly the set of actions to be performed may be for a single year or for multiple years. The geographic 35 region or area need not be contiguous and may be formed from disjoint or separate areas of land. Further the geographic region or area may be a single region or area with a single owner 13 or may have a plurality of sub-regions, each with a different owner. The sub-region may be a contiguous region, or it may be formed from a plurality of disjoint (unconnected) portions. The predetermined criteria used to select the set of management actions provided to a user may be default criteria, such as maximising the GHG emission reductions for the geographic 5 region or it may be more complex criteria and may be specified by the user. The methods described herein apply to fire management of a geographic region and may be performed (at least partially) computationally and/or provided as a software application. FIGURE 3 is representation of a computer system 300 implementing a method according to 10 an embodiment of the present invention. The computer system includes a display device 310, a general purpose computing device 320 including a processor and memory, a storage device 330 and user input devices 340. A computer readable medium 322 such as a DVD, portable hard drive or USB drive may be inserted into the computing device or downloaded to the computing device, to provide instructions for the processor to execute a software application 15 312. An internet or network connection 324 may also be provided for access to external information sources 350, such as historical charts 352, images 354 or other databases 356 or computing systems 358. The various methods may be implemented as a software application running on a Geographic 20 Information System (GIS). GIS merges cartography and database technologies so that information may be linked to locations on a map. In effect the map can be regarded as being divided into distinct geographic blocks, with each block having associated information. Users may view the map and the associated information may be overlaid, or further processed and overlaid. Users may thus view geographic data, run queries and then view the results. 25 In this embodiment the GIS software application 312 displays a map to the user and the user may select a geographic region. The map could be a topographic or satellite map, and the associated information may be information such as land tenure/ownership, fire management actions performed, planned management actions, past fires, vegetation type, natural features 30 such as rivers and manmade structures such as electricity or water distribution infrastructure etc. The selected geographic region may include a single contiguous area of land, or a plurality of disjoint areas of land (e.g., including land separated by water). A geographic region may 35 have a single owner, or multiple owners may each own a portion of the region (sub-regions). Further each owner could own multiple disjoint (unconnected) areas or portions within the region. In the context of this patent specification the owner will be taken to encompass 14 common joint owners of a portion of land as well as a leaseholder who has control of the associated land. Figure 4 shows a representation of geographic region 400 which is comprised of 4 contiguous regions 410, 420, 430 and 440 in which regions 410 and 440 have a common owner and regions 420 and 430 have different owners. 5 Fire management of the geographic region could be performed individually or collectively. For example individual owners could each be responsible for fire management of their land, or multiple owners could jointly or collectively manage the joint area of land (which could encompass the entire region). However in relation to a wide geographic region, individual 10 owners performing discrete and independent fire management actions is likely to be inefficient. Accordingly owners could outsource this management to third parties, or it could be done by, or in conjunction with arms of the local, State, Federal Government, Aboriginal Land Trusts and/or Indigenous Corporations through the execution of suitable agreements (to be discussed further below). For example Figure 4 illustrates regions 450, 460 and 470 which 15 correspond to fire management actions performed by a management entity on behalf of the three landowners. In some cases some of the individual owners may choose not to enter agreements and independently fire manage their areas, whilst others may engage a management entity. In such a case the management entity may be required to work around the sub regions owned by such non participating individual owners. 20 Fire management of a region may generate GHG emission reduction credits. This may be based on the emission reductions that have been identified ex post implementation of fire management (including burn intensity reduction) at the end of the season (or agreed time period) and proven or otherwise validated. The person entitled to such credits may be the 25 owner (or owners) of the land, or the person (or company) performing the fire management actions or some other third party. Third parties could obtain entitlement via agreements or contract with one or more owners or persons performing fire management in which the credits are assigned or sold to the third party in return for payment or valuable consideration including performance of the fire management actions. The agreements can define the nature 30 of the entitlement process, such as whether a lump sum is paid for entitlement to all of the carbon offset credits, a royalty rate based on the sale of such credits, or agreed distribution percentage of any credits obtained (allowing parties to control sale of such credits). The agreements may define who is to plan, perform and/or manage the fire management actions, and the nature of remuneration for such activities such as a fixed price, agreed hourly rate, or 35 share of carbon offset credits or profits obtained from sale of such credits. This may include the creation of a project that takes on the form identified at-law as a Managed Investment Scheme (MIS). In such a case the agreements with the owners of the sub regions will be with 15 the responsible entity which operates the scheme. The responsible entity will then take responsibility for planning and carrying out of fire management activities (whether by the responsible entity themselves or contracting out of such duties to third parties), and the claiming and distribution of any GHG emission reduction credits resulting from the fire 5 management activities carried out. The scheme investors (who receive the benefits) may include the owners who have signed the agreements and/or other interested parties. The agreements may then allow distribution of the benefits to the land owners and/or scheme investors over both time and geographic area irrespective of the specific areas or sub regions in which fire management actions actually took place in a given year. In this way an owner of 10 a sub-region who has signed an agreement with the responsible entity, but did not have any fire management actions performed on their land during a season, may gain entitlement to the benefit arising from fire management actions performed on another sub region in the geographic region. 15 In summary for a geographic region, there are at least three parties of relevance, namely one or more owners, one or more persons responsible for fire management, and one or more persons entitled to any GHG emission reduction credits arising from fire management of the area. Each of the parties may be the same person, or some combination with the entitlement 20 captured and defined in one or more agreements. For example there could be multiple owners with a single person or entity responsible for fire management who also is entitled to the GHG emission reduction credits. In order to obtain carbon offset credits, the various agreements or legal contracts, land ownership or management records could be obtained and used to determine information on the entitlement of GHG emission reduction credits. This 25 information may be stored in a GIS system and associated with the geographic region for provision to a registration or issuing authority so as to obtain valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits in return for performance of fire management activities. Some parties with a geographic region may choose to work independently of the other owners and management entity. The carbon offset credits or emission permits can then distributed to the various 30 entitled parties, or be sold or traded and the economic value or profit from the sale distributed to the various entitled parties. Some combination of the two may be used with the exact formulation and nature of the distribution being governed by agreements between the parties. Having selected a geographic region to fire manage, an estimate of the business-as-usual 35 GHG emission for the geographic region needs to be obtained. The business-as-usual estimate represents the typical or average emissions that would occur due to burning of biomass from the geographic region in the course of normal business. That is, if no specific fire 16 management actions were performed with the express purpose of reducing GHG emissions. This includes emissions resulting from natural and manmade fires including those caused by lighting, those performed to assist in clearing land, controlling regrowth, pasture rejuvenation as well as fire management actions such as those to generate fire breaks to reduce available 5 biomass. For a geographic region, these estimates could be obtained from historical data, published documents or tables, electronic databases, or they could be computationally estimated using a baseline emission model. Inputs for the baseline emission model could include historical 10 records regarding fires in the geographic region, such as timing, location, extent or scale, intensity of fires. Alternatively or additionally satellite maps of the region, such as those from LandSat or MODIS satellites could be obtained for a relevant baseline time period and then the images could undergo image and statistical analysis to identify fires and their extent. AVHRR and Landsat remotely sensed imagery could be the tool used to determine spatial 15 occurrence of fire, or fire history. Two consecutive images surrounding a time point of interest (one before, one after) could be obtained. Image analysis could then be performed to compare consecutive images and identify evidence of fires (fire scars) which may show up as darkening of pixels 20 corresponding to a change from green biomass to black or grey ash from one image to the next. For example Figures 5 and 6 are representations 500 600 of images of the geographic region 400 of Figure 4 taken at a first time point and a second time point. Regions 510 and 520 show bums prior to the first time point and regions 610, 620, 630 and 640 show bums between the first and second time points. Regions 610, 620 and 630 correspond to 25 planned/controlled fire management actions and region 640 represents a naturally occurring fire, such as one caused by a lighting strike, which was actively fought (once detected) to obtain control and to reduce the extent of the burning. The size of the darkening could be used to estimate the area burnt, and the amount of colour change could be used to indicate the intensity of the fire. Further the colour of the area prior to burning could be used to indicate 30 the type and density of biomass burnt. The timing of the burn is also of direct relevance, so each image will have associated information allowing the time to be estimated or determined. Preferably this is a time and date stamp included or associated with the image, but may be a tag or other indicator variable which indicates if the burn was before or after a relevant threshold time (e.g. early season or late season). Alternatively data on fires could be obtained 35 from third parties, such as the North Australian Fire Information website http://www.firenorth.org.au which publishes maps showing fire scars and fire history data, where timing of image capture can be clearly identified. Estimates of the extent of natural 17 fires, if left uncontrolled could be based analysis of local geography (natural fire breaks) and local climate (wind direction etc) combined with historical records. A statistical model could be developed and implemented computationally to combine and 5 analyse the input data and then estimate the business-as-usual emissions. Such a model could be first validated by comparison with historical records and/or field trials in which fire areas are ground truthed prior and after burning to determine type and density of biomass before burning, extent of burn and fire intensity. Also different types of biomass could be burnt and GHG emissions measured to provide further validation information. Experimental 10 information could thus be used to calibrate and/or validate the statistical model, which could then be applied more generally (e.g. to any geographic region). Also as natural fires occur more or less randomly (stochastically) in time and location (they may be subject to some seasonal dependency) estimates could be provided as annualised rolling averages, such as over 10 or 15 year periods in order to smooth out such random (or semi random) effects and 15 provide more robust estimates of the business-as-usual estimate. One methodology that could be used for estimating business-as-usual emissions is based on the methodologies and formulas used by the Australian Department of Climate Change in producing an estimate of GHG emission due burning of Savannas for the national GHG 20 emission inventory. Details of this method, as well as the values of relevant parameters may be found in section 4E of the Australian Methodology for the Estimation of Greenhouse Gas emissions and sinks 2006, Australian Department of Climate Change, December 2007 which is herein included by reference. An alternative methodology for estimation of baseline emissions may be found in Jeremy Russell-Smith et al, "Improving estimates of savanna 25 burning emissions for greenhouse accounting in northern Australia: limitations, challenges, applications", International Journal of Wildland Fire 2009, 18, 1-18, or other relevant publications. Such a computer model could be run over historical data and images and stored in a database, 30 an electronic lookup table or published in a document. This approach would have the advantage that the business-as-usual estimates could be published and independently verified and used as a data standard. However in such cases, the data may be effectively fixed in time, and over time the model may require updating or validation in case of climate changes or changes in land usage. Alternatively the model could be run as required to produce a baseline 35 estimate over a given time period or prior to a given time such as the current year. In this way the business-as-usual estimate could take into account the current state of the geographic region. 18 This method could be extended or incorporated into a predictive model. For example a Monte Carlo type approach could be utilised in which the state of a geographic region is obtained for a first time point and then fires are simulated in this region over an extended period, such as 10 years. The fire events could be created at random times and locations, or randomly 5 sampled from an assumed or known historical distribution, and the extent and intensity of each simulated fire could be estimated based on the state of the land prior to the simulated fire with the above model used to estimate the likely emissions for that fire and land state. As each simulated fire changes the state of the land where the simulated fire occurred, this model would need to include estimates of regrowth rates so that the effect of a subsequent simulated 10 fire takes into account the effect of an earlier fire. Each Monte Carlo run or simulation could be used to provide an estimate of the annual business-as-usual emissions and by performing hundreds or thousands of such Monte Carlo runs (simulations), an estimate of the likely GHG emissions, as well as the likely variation could be obtained. 15 Business as usual estimates could thus be precomputed and provided to the GIS application via a lookup table, they could be manually input by the user, or they could be calculated on the fly using an appropriate model and input parameters provided by the user such as relevant baseline period and region. The GIS application could then run a statistical model or Monte Carlo simulation as described above to produce the required business-as-usual estimates. 20 The user interface could then allow a user to nominate a series of fire management reduction actions to be performed over a time period, such as by selecting areas to be managed on a map, or alternatively the user could initiate a calculation by the software to determine a possible set of fire management reduction actions to be implemented, such as those which 25 maximise the GHG gas emission reductions for the geographic region over the specified time period. Some combination of the two could be performed in which the software first proposes a set of fire management actions, and the user can then modify the proposed set of fire management actions, such as by deleting some actions, adding new actions, or adjusting proposed actions. 30 For a given set of management actions, the software could then estimate the likely GHG emission reductions by comparing the estimated emissions taking into account the management actions with the business-as-usual estimates. This could be performed using a model similar to that described above, which uses information such as an image on the 35 existing state of the region, applies the management actions at the specified times, and then simulates a series of fires so as to estimate the GHG emissions from the geographic region. This could then be compared to the business-as-usual estimate. A Monte Carlo simulation 19 approach could again be utilised to estimate the most likely GHG emissions by repeated simulating fires and enable a statistical estimate of the likely emissions to be obtained. Fire management actions to be performed may be selected computationally using a model or 5 an expert system. For example in the case of Northern Australian the available fuel and weather vary predictably. The wet season provides ample water to stimulate significant regrowth. Then in the early dry season (for example, in some areas this may be defined as May-July, but it may be defined differently in other regions, with definitions utilising consideration of when the dry season starts as judged by month which commonly sees 10 reduction in rainfall below a certain volume) the biomass is still relatively moist, the temperature is generally lower and the winds are less strong than those in the late dry season (August- December). Thus fires in the early dry season tend to be smaller and less intense, and thus produce fewer GHG emissions than those in the late season. Accordingly a computational model or expert system can reliably predict the time of year to perform fire 15 management actions. The selection of location, action type and extent of the action may be performed randomly or based on taking into account historical data such as past actions, natural fires, vegetation extent and location of natural fire barriers which may be obtained from image analysis of satellite maps. 20 Implementing fire management actions includes a range of activities such as manual fire breaks and back burning, including the use of slow or cool bums and co-ordination of control methods between neighbours or across property borders, typically in the early dry season (May-July), as well as establishing response teams with control equipment to actively fight and contain natural fires occurring the late dry season. Such activities can thus be used to 25 reduce the severity of any fires that occur in the late dry season, as they prevent such fires from gaining in intensity and spreading which they would otherwise do without the performance of such fire management action. Thus image analysis and historical information could be analysed to identify areas which have 30 not been subject to recent burning and in which biomass could be building up. Fire management actions, such as back burning or burning of fire breaks could then be scheduled to occur in the early dry season (or at other appropriate times for other types of biomass). The amount of resources available for performing management actions could also be provided as input to the computational model which could then select possible management actions to be 35 performed. For each selected management actions, a simulated burn process could be performed and the amount of GHG emissions stored. Then a Monte Carlo simulation could be performed in which natural fires are simulated and the emissions calculated. An iterative 20 process could be implemented in which a first set of management actions are proposed, following by estimation of GHG emissions such as by Monte Carlo simulation, or statistical model, and then another set of management actions are proposed and the process is repeated over and over again. Various optimisation techniques could be used to optimise the iterative 5 process in order to arrive at a set of management actions which are most likely to reduce the GHG emissions for the region (and subject to any constraints such as available resources etc). A predetermined selection criteria may be used to rank the sets of proposed management actions to allow identification of the best or top 10 (or 20, 50 etc) sets of management actions. This selection criteria is predefined prior to the iterative process for proposing management 10 actions and estimating their effects. Default selection criteria may be maximisation of GHG emission reductions over the geographic area for the management time period. Other selection criteria could be selected by the user. The top set, or top ranked sets of management actions may be provided to the user to allow 15 the user to choose which set of management actions to be performed. For example a list of actions and the estimated GHG reductions could be provided to the user. Each action or entry in the list could comprise a proposed date (eg 1st week of May), area to be burnt (latitude, longitude of points defining the edges), type of activity (controlled burn, cool bum) and the estimated GHG emission reductions. Further information such as resources required (staff, 20 equipment, time), estimated cost of performing the action, owners of land to be burnt, locations of fences, access roads, etc, could also be provided. A user could then view each proposed set of actions on a GIS layer and further assess the viability of the proposed actions, such as taking into account ease of access, ability to control fires, etc. The user could also select one of the sets of actions and proceed to modify the time or extent of one or more of the 25 proposed actions and force recalculation of the estimated GHG emission reductions. A final decision on what set of actions to perform can then be made. In this way a set of fire management actions can be planned and associated with the geographic region, and further the amount of GHG emission reductions that may be attributed 30 to the associating a set of fire management actions may also be determined. Also as simulation techniques are used which take into account previous actions, fire management actions could be planned for multiple years, and a range of different scenarios could be explored. This thus provides a useful tool to fire managers, as they are able to plan fire management actions over regions they are managing in a way that will maximise the likely 35 GHG emission reductions (and thus amount of offset credits or emission permits and hence economic benefit) for the entire region. 21 Further in the case that there are multiple sub regions and/or entitled parties in the geographic region, the step of determining the set of management actions which are most likely to reduce the GHG emissions for the geographic region may be performed in such a way as to maximize the green house gas (GHG) emission reduction credits for one or more of the sub 5 regions or entitled parties. For example the geographic region may contain a mixture of sub regions which have signed agreements with a fire management body and other sub regions which are not managed by the fire management body. This may be non burnable regions such as lakes, cities or roads, or land owned by owners who have not signed agreements and are conducting their own independent operations (or none at all). In this case it is desirable to 10 maximise the emission reductions for the sub-regions who have signed the agreements. Alternatively different distribution agreements may have been made with different owners of different sub regions and it may be desirable to maximise the reductions for one sub region/owner over another. 15 Such outcomes can be achieved by modifying the default predetermined selection criteria. For example a weighting could be assigned to each sub-region and the sum of the estimated emissions for a sub region multiplied by the associated weighting factor could be obtained. This would enable ranking of sets of management action and the top set, or top sets could then be provided to the user. Alternatively if the management period is several years, yearly 20 weighting factors could be applied to maximise the returns in the early years. Similarly if it is expected that the value (price) of carbon credits or emission permits is likely to change over time an appropriate selection criteria based upon the expected changed could be used. This may occur for example if a new mine or coal power station is approved which will need to buy offset credits or alternatively if GHG emitting project finishes (eg closure of a mine or 25 coal fired power station) which may lead to an excess of credits. The same software tool or a related tool utilising much of the same modules or functionality could also be used to actually calculate the emission reductions based on actual management actions performed, as well as taking into account actual fires over a year or other management 30 time period. Information on a set of fire management actions or known fire history or fire frequency or occurrence in a given time period may be logged and information regarding the actions stored in a database. Relevant information would be timing of the actions, extent of the activity, severity of bum etc. Some or even all of this information could be obtained via image analysis of the before and after images of the areas in which the management actions 35 were performed. Additionally GHG emissions resulting from carrying out the activity (eg from vehicle emissions, electricity used etc) could be logged to offset the estimated reductions. The software tool could also include a module to estimate likely GHG gas 22 emissions resulting from carrying out fire management activities and used to offset the predicted reductions. For example a set of fires initiated by helicopters could be proposed. In this case the module could estimate a flight path for the helicopter and estimate the emissions assume a fixed emission rate (eg time in air x GHG emissions per hour). Further, the system 5 may be able to compute the net emission reduction benefit as a result of netting out anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions that occurred within the project boundary or project activity. At the end of a relevant time period such as start of the next wet season or end of a reporting 10 year, the software tool could be run to analyse the amount of GHG emissions from the geographic region which has been managed. This may involve analysis of satellite images or other data obtained at the start, during or end of the relevant time period so that appropriate calculations such as those based upon models discussed above may be performed. The estimated GHG emissions could be compared with baseline estimates, and emission 15 reductions which can be associated with management actions can then be determined. The GHG emission reductions attributed to the management actions could then be used to obtain registered GHG reduction units from an appropriate issuing authority. This could involve suppling information to an issuing authority on what management actions 20 were performed in order to obtain a valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit, how the GHG emission reductions were estimated, and who the entitled and/or responsible parties are. This information could be submitted or supplied electronically, such as over the internet using agreed protocols or methods. The information could be provided in a secure form as is known in the art. The issuing authority could then verify this received information and issue 25 numbered emission reduction credits. These GHG reduction units could then be traded, sold, assigned or otherwise transferred as required. In the event of the need to transfer the registered and numbered emission reduction unit to another registry, all data regarding creation and ownership will be transferred to the new registry. A further requirement may be that any change to the status of the emission reduction unit (sale, retirement) by any future 30 owners requires a notification to the creator of the credit or original issuing authority. This will help ensure that credits are not fraudulently traded. Any valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit can then be distributed to relevant parties based upon the distribution arrangements specified in the agreements with the owners. 35 The methods and software tools described herein would be of benefit to owners, persons responsible for fire management, and persons entitled to any GHG emission reduction credits arising from fire management of the area. It would enable them to quantify GHG emission 23 reductions due to fire management actions that are performed in a geographic region or area, and these (tangible) reductions could then be claimed for economic benefit. Further embodiments of the software tool or method described could be used to determine what fire management actions to perform for a coming year, or even over a period of many years. In 5 the latter case, an in particular in the case of finite management resources this would enable development of fire management actions over the long term which is likely to maximise the GHG emission reductions that can be claimed. The methods and software tools described herein also allow maximisation of GHG emission reductions over wide areas including many different owners and allow these benefits to be shared collectively between the different 10 parties. That is collective action has the potential to generate greater GHG emission reductions compared to individuals owners acting alone (and thus a concrete tangible, physical effect on the environment of economic benefit). Further the methodology can be implemented by a commercial entity such as a Managed Investment Scheme, which over sees management of a large geographic area. Such a responsible entity can enter multiple 15 agreements and is likely to have the staffing and resources to perform operations over a wide area in more efficient manner compared to individual owners acting independently using their own resources. This approach is thus likely to generate greater GHG emission reductions compared to individual owners acting independently using their own resources. Such an overarching approach to management of savanna burning programs over potentially large 20 geographic areas is likely to result in improved fire management and achieve greater GHG emission reductions, and thus quantities of carbon offset credits and emission permits which can then be traded in a carbon market. Further the economic benefit can be appropriately and reasonably transferred to interested and concerned parties on basis of level of effort, input, legal ownership or on the basis of agreed and negotiated positions. 25 Whilst the application has focussed on fire management of savannas, it is to be understood that the methodology could equivalently be applied to management of other types of biomass in which it is possible to associate GHG emission reductions with management actions. This may include changes to management practices for commercial crops such as sugarcane, or 30 natural forests where it may be desirable to conduct back burning operations or firebreaks to reduce the likelihood of wildfire. Those of skill in the art would further appreciate that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein 35 may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules and steps have been described above generally in terms of their 24 functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a 5 departure from the scope of the present invention. The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. For a hardware implementation, processing may be 10 implemented within one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), digital signal processors (DSPs), digital signal processing devices (DSPDs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro controllers, microprocessors, other electronic units designed to perform the functions described herein, or a combination thereof. Software modules, also known as computer 15 programs, computer codes, or instructions, may contain a number a number of source code or object code segments or instructions, and may reside in any computer readable medium such as a RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM or any other form of computer readable medium. In the alternative, the computer readable medium may be integral to the processor. The 20 processor and the computer readable medium may reside in an ASIC or related device. The software codes may be stored in a memory unit and executed by a processor. The memory unit may be implemented within the processor or external to the processor, in which case it can be communicatively coupled to the processor via various means as is known in the art. 25 Throughout the specification and the claims that follow, unless the context requires otherwise, the words "comprise" and "include" and variations such as "comprising" and "including" will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated integer or group of integers, but not the exclusion of any other integer or group of integers. 30 The reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgement of any form of suggestion that such prior art forms part of the common general knowledge. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention is not restricted in its use to 35 the particular application described. Neither is the present invention restricted in its preferred embodiment with regard to the particular elements and/or features described or depicted herein. It will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to the embodiment or 25 embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims. 26

Claims (10)

1. A method for obtaining a valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit based on implementation of a fire management plan in a geographic region, the geographic region 5 including a plurality of sub regions, the method including: a) entering into one or more agreements with the respective owners of a plurality of the plurality of sub regions in the first geographic region to perform fire management actions on the geographic region during a management time period in return for entitlement to at least a portion of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits or 10 value derived from the creation and sale of any valuable carbon offset credits or emission permits obtained based upon performance of the fire management actions; b) performing a set of fire management actions in at least one of the plurality of sub-regions during a first time period, wherein the first time period is at least a portion of the management time period; 15 c) obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual Green House Gas (GHG) emissions for the geographic region for the first time period; d) estimating the reduction in GHG emissions that may be attributed to the set of fire management actions implemented during the first time period compared to the business-as-usual estimate; 20 e) obtaining at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit from an issuing authority for provision into a compliance or voluntary market for trading, wherein the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is based upon the estimated reduction in GHG emissions associated with the set of fire management actions performed in at least one of the plurality of sub-regions during the first time period and the at least one 25 valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit, or economic value based upon the sale of the at least one valuable carbon offset credit or emission permit is distributed to one or more entitled parties based upon the one or more agreements.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the set of fire management actions is only 30 performed in selected sub regions of the plurality of sub-regions in the geographic region during the first time period and wherein the one or more entitled parties based upon the one or more agreements includes one or more owners of sub regions in which fire management actions were not performed during the first time period. 35

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the set of fire management actions performed is based upon historical data. 27

4. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein estimating the reduction in GHG emissions is obtained from computationally modelling the fire management actions performed during the first time period.

5 5. A method substantially as herein described with reference to any one of the embodiments of the invention illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

6. A method for determining a set of fire management actions to be performed in a geographic area during a management time period to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) 10 emissions, said method including: a) obtaining an estimate of the business-as-usual GHG emission for the geographic area; b) proposing a set of fire management actions to be performed during the management time period for the geographic area; 15 c) estimating the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area by comparing a computational estimate of the GHG emissions based upon the performing the proposed set of fire management actions during the management time period and the calculated business-as-usual GHG emissions; and d) repeating steps b) and c) a plurality of times to determine a plurality of sets of 20 management actions and associated estimates of the likely GHG emissions; e) providing at least one set of management actions to a user and the associated estimate of the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area during the management time period based upon a predetermined selection criteria. 25

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the predetermined selection criteria is maximising the GHG emission reductions for the geographic area.

8. The method as claimed in claim 6 or 7, wherein the geographic area includes a plurality of sub-regions, and estimating the likely GHG emissions reduction for the geographic area 30 includes estimating the likely GHG emissions reductions for each of the sub-regions, and the predetermined selection criteria is based upon maximising the GHG emission reductions of at least one of the plurality of sub-regions..

9. The method as claimed in claim 7 or 8, wherein the step of proposing a set of fire 35 management actions is performed by computational analysis of data associated with the geographic area. 28

10. A computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement the method of any one of claims 6 to 9. 29