Yaloak Estate Environmental Plantings #1 Project (Revoked)

Yaloak Estate Environmental Plantings #1 Project (Revoked) is an environmental planting project located at the historic Yaloak Estate in Fiskville, approximately 60km northwest of Melbourne in Victoria. It was registered in March 2015, covers 2009.38 hectares, and was ultimately revoked in March 2022.

The Environmental Plantings methodology involves establishing permanent plantings of a mix of native tree species on land that was predominantly used for agricultural purposes for at least five years prior to project commencement. These projects require establishing a sufficient stocking density of trees and shrubs to achieve forest cover (typically a density of at least 200 stems per hectare), and the tree species chosen must be native to the local area.

The surrounding Ballan and Fiskville region is known for large-scale grazing and dryland cropping operations, with Yaloak Estate itself operating as a highly productive sheep grazing and cropping enterprise. The area falls within Victoria's high rainfall zone, receiving over 500mm annually. The predominant soil type at the estate is a duplex sodosol, consisting of a basalt clay-loam topsoil over heavy sodic clay, which can be prone to waterlogging.

An interesting note about this project is that it was one of five separate environmental planting projects (EOP101118–EOP101122) established simultaneously on Yaloak Estate. The sprawling estate, which also hosts an active wind farm, was sold by businessman Peter Yunghanns to a China-backed agricultural firm, Harvest Agriculture, for approximately $60 million in 2020. The carbon project underwent a variation in March 2017 to remove certain areas from its boundaries, before eventually being entirely revoked under section 30 of the CFI Rule in March 2022.