Calum Carruth and his wife Belinda are the owners and operators of Murchison House Station (MHS), a 350,000-acre pastoral lease where the Murchison River meets the coast near Kalbarri, in Western Australia’s Southern Rangelands. Calum’s love of the bush brought him to MHS in 1997 to assist his stepfather, and by 2005 he and Belinda had purchased the station outright.

Their first enterprise breeding Brahman cattle was curtailed by the Live Export Ban, prompting a shift in focus to rangeland goats and nature-based tourism. Calum has confronted the realities of historic overuse and poor rangeland management firsthand, and has since committed MHS to projects with the Soil Commissioner’s Office and the Southern Rangelands Revitalisation Program, evaluating practical methods of rehabilitation and improved management to promote economic and environmental sustainability.

Calum is also engaged in an R&D partnership with Origo Farms developing AgTech solutions for weather, water and livestock monitoring and automated mustering gates, and works with the Northern Agricultural Catchment Council to help protect the northernmost breeding colony of the endangered Carnaby’s Cockatoo.

PGA Roles

• Currently serves as Secretary of the board of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA.
• Member of the Pastoral and Private Property Rights committees and the PGA Policy Group.
• Recently served as the Rangelands representative to the Goat Industry Research and Development Adoption Council (GIRDAC).
• Since 2018, has worked with the PGA and State government to develop workable land tenure solutions enabling large green energy projects to co-exist with the pastoral industry.
• Involved in negotiations with the State government, PGA and Native Title groups to facilitate a Carbon Abatement Program.