Greening Australia and Canopy Nature Based Solutions National Reforestation Program 2023

Greening Australia and Canopy Nature Based Solutions National Reforestation Program 2023 is an environmental planting project located at multiple aggregated sites across Southern Australia, including regions near Canberra (ACT), Ceduna (SA), Katanning (WA), and Sale (VIC). It was registered in March 2023 and covers a combined project area of 3,326.37 hectares.

Environmental planting projects involve establishing permanent, mixed-species native trees and shrubs on previously cleared land. Under standard methodology requirements, these native species are typically planted at a density of at least 200 stems per hectare to ensure they can achieve a minimum of 20% crown cover and reach at least 2 meters in height. The project specifically targets land that was predominantly used for agricultural purposes for at least five years prior to commencement.

Due to the large-scale national scope of the program, regional land use and environmental conditions vary significantly across the coordinated sites. The historically cleared lands were primarily used for extensive and intensive agriculture, including broadacre cropping (such as wheat and canola) and sheep and cattle grazing. Environmental conditions range from semi-arid, low-rainfall climates with sandy loam soils in the Western Australian wheatbelt and South Australian peninsulas, to high-rainfall areas with heavier clay and basaltic soils in the Victorian Gippsland and New South Wales Tablelands regions.

An interesting fact about this project is that the proponent, Canopy Nature Based Solutions, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Greening Australia, an environmental enterprise with over 40 years of experience in large-scale native reforestation and ecosystem restoration. The project registry also notes several administrative variations where specific land areas were either amended or removed from the aggregated project in May 2024, December 2024, and recently in May 2026.