Chris Henggeler, Kachana Station, east of Kununurra, has spent the past 18 years proving that through careful management, grazing cattle can actually improve the natural environment.

According to the Federal Government's Garnaut Report on climate change, the livestock sector is Australia's third largest producer of greenhouse gases.

The report, released last year, sent cattlemen on a steep education curve as they sought to understand terms such as 'carbon sequestration'.

In order to offset emissions from cattle, rural industry is contemplating tree planting programs and strategic fire management plans.

Many producers are fearing the worst.

But Mr Henggeler says it is quite easy to sequester carbon in the landscape, using controlled grazing.

He moved to Kachana Station in 1991 from Africa, and set about turning a highly eroded and barren landscape into a lush valley.

He says that rather than fire control, Kachana Station uses its cattle to mulch, fertilise and prune vegetation.

"We do not have enough cattle to cycle all the vegetation ? no station does outside of drought conditions ? so we bunch the animals together," Mr Henggeler told ABC rural radio.

"That means that what they do not eat is pressed to the ground.

"We are looking at feeding the soils, getting the vegetation that is produced every year back into the soil, rather then exhausting it into the atmosphere every so often with fires."

He says there's no need for pastoralists to be scared into believing their trade is harmful to the environment.

"The political debate about carbon and climate change seems to be very reactive," he said.

"It seems to lack functional and practical science. There is plenty of evidence out in the field to suggest we are barking up the wrong tree.

"We have got to focus on how nature functions, and make sure we help nature to function better. We can do that.

"When we run cattle in a landscape, we will naturally have emissions.

"But if we end up having a more secure water supply, greater productivity and lower costs of production per kilo of beef, then I think the trade-off with the environment is pretty fair," Mr Henggeler said.

l More information about the environmental trials at Kachana Station is available at www.kachana.com