As drought tightens its grip on Western Australia, one young couple's radical experiment in land regeneration has survived years of next to no rain.

David Pollock and Frances Jones manage Wooleen Station, a half-million acre property in the Murchison Rangelands, seven hours' drive north of Perth.

Eight years ago, at age 27, Mr Pollock inherited the family's pastoral lease.

Having observed the property's decline due to drought and decades of over-grazing, he took the radical move of destocking all cattle from the station.

Intent on "nursing the property back to health", he also turned off all man-made watering points to reduce kangaroo and wild goat populations, and built infrastructure and earthworks to replicate natural ecosystems.

Six months into his experiment Ms Jones, then aged 18, arrived at Wooleen Station for a two-week stay during her "gap year".

But she fell in love with both the property and Mr Pollock.

Ms Jones and Mr Pollock are now partners in undertaking one of the most ambitious land rehabilitation experiments in the country.

Many neighbouring pastoralists and industry representatives were sceptical, labelling them "foolish exemplars".

But when ABC's Australian Story program first visited Wooleen Station in 2012, the couple described the results as striking.

"The Roderick River flowed clear of eroded sediment into the Wooleen Lake for the first time in living memory and we've noticed trees like Casurina, Red River gums, and Coolabahs germinating into river floodways," Mr Pollock said.

Ms Jones added: "We've also re-established large areas of native couch grass into the Murchison River bed, a species not recorded here previously, though integral to the stability of the river banks."

Since then a lack of valuable winter rains has slowed the couple's efforts in recovering the property.

Wooleen Station destocked all cattle from the property in a radical experiment to regenerate the land. ( Australian Story )

But they say the landscape is now better equipped for when the rains do come.

"I think the regeneration work certainly risk-proofs the station against the highs and the lows," Ms Jones said.

"Certainly the situation's not getting worse which is sometimes what can happen in a drought. It's nice to know that we're just holding our own as it is."

But Greg Brennan, rangelands development officer with Western Australia's Department of Agriculture and Food, believes the couple is too modest when talking about the progress of the property.

"To say that Wooleen has not gone backwards is something of an understatement because country in that condition is in a good position to benefit from rainfall," he said.

Mr Brennan said Wooleen Station was considered to be "out in the wilderness" when Mr Pollock first implemented his drastic approach to regeneration, and now it appears the tide is turning.

"Other pastoralists are following in David and Frances' footsteps to the extent that there seems to be an increasing acceptance that to achieve the necessary reproduction and growth rates for profitable livestock production, pastoralists need to focus on controlling total grazing pressure, particularly in dry seasons," he said.

Government late to address modern-day pastoralism

Mr Pollock and Ms Jones say the Western Australian Government's approach to land tenure reform has been slow.

At the end of June next year, pastoral leases covering 87 million hectares of the state will expire.

Lease renewals have been sent to station managers, but many have complained they have not addressed the issue of tenure.

"The Government is looking to renew our lease almost on the same terms that we had for the past 50 years, which stipulates we must run livestock and that must form the majority of our income, which I think is quite sad because they're failing to address modern-day pastoralism," Ms Jones said.

"They're not making allowances for the fact that the land could be used for other things - conservation, eco-tourism, private ownership, carbon farming - all sorts of other things that haven't even been considered yet because they currently can't be."

The couple say even the Government's own research has found running cattle on Wooleen Station is currently unviable, having only recently discovered their station was classified as "C" or "not viable as a stand-alone pastoral enterprise and with insufficient biophysical land capability to become viable within five years".

"You have to wonder why the Government is trying to renew an outdated pastoral lease if they themselves don't believe the land can't cope with running enough cattle needed to be profitable," Ms Jones said.

A regenerated river bed on Wooleen Station. ( Australian Story )

Pastoralists were outraged over revelations the state's Department of Agriculture and Food had in 2011 secretly rated every pastoral lease across the state based on the condition of their land.

The state's Lands Minister, Terry Redman, said the Government was embarking on land tenure reform and hoped to amend legislation within the current term to allow a new form of lease "which would allow pastoralists more secure tenure and a chance to diversify beyond just grazing of stock".

"The Department of Agriculture and Food report, A Report on the Viability in the Northern Rangelands, is not a part of the 2015 pastoral lease renewal process and has no impact on the state government's 2015 pastoral lease renewal offer," Mr Redman said.

But Western Australia's Pastoralists and Graziers Association (PGA) launched legal action on Monday to stop the public release of the department's report.

"The release of this private and confidential information is in no way in the public interest, nor does it adequately reflect the economic viability and sustainability of most stations in the Northern Rangelands," a PGA spokesman said.

Financial hardship but no regrets

The couple rely on tourists and donations to keep Wooleen Station afloat. ( Supplied: Wooleen Station )

The couple currently rely on donations and tourism dollars to pay the bills but they hope the Government will one day consider paying people a stewardship fee to rehabilitate land.

"Certainly pastoralism could become viable and my long-term aim is to find a way of running cattle sustainably," Mr Pollock said.

"This countryside is the perfect place to produce meat. But it won't be if we keep treating it badly."

Mr Brennan told Australian Story back in 2012 that he did not know how the couple manage financially.

"What they've done at Wooleen is drastic. To totally destock the property means cessation of income. How they keep bread on the table I don't know. I haven't seen their financial returns and how much money they make out of tourism, but I can imagine it's a big challenge," he said.

In recent times the couple say they have reintroduced a small number of about 200 head of cattle during winter months to help pay off debt and fulfil their lease conditions.

For the couple, balancing their regeneration work with their cheque book is an ongoing struggle.

But Ms Jones, now 25, said she had no regrets about walking away from her childhood home in Victoria's green Mount Macedon to take up a new life and a new project amongst the red dirt of Wooleen Station.

"Even if the change is slow, we can't walk away from the environmental impacts of what's happening on the rangeland," she said.

Watch the full story on Australian Story tonight at 8:00pm on ABC TV.

Read the full statement from the Western Australian Government on the Australian Story website.