Ploughshare Revegetation

Ploughshare Revegetation is an environmental planting project located approximately 10 kilometers southwest of Wedderburn in Central Victoria. Registered in March 2015, the project covers 92 hectares of land that was historically cleared for agriculture. The surrounding Loddon Shire region is characterized by a mix of broadacre cropping, sheep grazing, and significant remnants of the Goldfields' Box-Ironbark forests.

The project operates under the Reforestation by Environmental or Mallee Plantings-FullCAM methodology. This framework credits the carbon sequestered by establishing permanent native forests on land that had been used for farming for at least five years prior to commencement. As a "FullCAM" project, the carbon abatement is modeled using the Australian Government's Full Carbon Accounting Model software rather than relying solely on direct physical measurements of tree growth.

Environmentally, the Wedderburn area sits within a temperate to semi-arid climate zone, receiving an average annual rainfall of approximately 450mm. The soils are typically ancient, sedimentary clay loams and red-brown earths common to the Victorian Goldfields, which can be nutrient-poor and prone to erosion when cleared. The project works to restore these soils by reintroducing native vegetation cover.

An interesting detail is the project's namesake, the Ploughshare Wattle (Acacia gunnii), a small shrub native to the area known for its distinctive triangular, plough-shaped leaves. Although registered under the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) scheme in 2015, Greenfleet originally direct-seeded the site in 2009 as part of its voluntary offsetting operations. A variation to the project in May 2021 saw the removal of some land areas from the project boundary, likely to refine the credited area to match successful vegetation establishment.