Old Gobur Road Merton (Revoked)

Old Gobur Road Merton (Revoked) is an environmental planting project located near the small locality of Merton in Victoria, approximately 40 kilometers west of the regional center of Mansfield. Registered on April 12, 2013, the project covered a small footprint of 5.61 hectares within the Murrindindi Shire. The surrounding region is traditionally agricultural, dominated by sheep and cattle grazing on land that was originally cleared of native vegetation decades ago.

The project operated under the Carbon Farming (Quantifying Carbon Sequestration by Permanent Environmental Plantings of Native Tree Species using the CFI Reforestation Modelling Tool) Methodology Determination 2012. This methodology involved establishing permanent plantings of mixed native tree species on land that had been clear of forest for at least five years. Projects of this type generally require stocking densities sufficient to achieve forest cover, typically exceeding 200 stems per hectare. Interestingly, this specific project was revoked on December 4, 2015, under Section 32 of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011. A Section 32 revocation is a voluntary action by the proponent, suggesting that Greenfleet likely withdrew the project from the ACCU scheme for administrative reasons or to consolidate it, rather than due to regulatory non-compliance.

Environmentally, the Merton area sits within a temperate zone with moderate rainfall, typically averaging around 700mm annually. The specific site was described by the proponent as degraded farmland with highly compacted soil prior to planting, requiring deep ripping to allow moisture penetration. The planting activities, which physically commenced in September 2009 (prior to the project's formal ACCU registration), involved planting approximately 8,000 seedlings across a slightly larger 7-hectare envelope. The species mix included twelve different native Australian plants selected to restore local biodiversity and connectivity with neighboring remnant forests.