Pig Hill Plantings Project

Pig Hill Plantings Project is a permanent environmental planting project located in Mangana, situated in the Fingal Valley of north-east Tasmania. The project is approximately 10km north of the town of Fingal and roughly 80km southeast of Launceston. Registered in June 2023, the project covers 206 hectares of land that was previously cleared for agriculture. The site has been described by the proponent as having been in a degraded state with significant weed overgrowth prior to the restoration activities.

The project operates under the Reforestation by Environmental or Mallee Plantings methodology. This involves establishing native forest cover on land that has been clear of forest for at least five years. The methodology requires planting species native to the local area at a density sufficient to achieve forest cover (typically a minimum of 200 stems per hectare) and maintaining them permanently. For Pig Hill, this involved planting approximately 60,000 native trees to revitalize the landscape and sequester carbon.

The Fingal Valley region is traditionally known for sheep grazing and forestry operations. Environmentally, the area lies within a partial rain shadow created by the Ben Lomond plateau to the west, resulting in a drier climate compared to western Tasmania, with annual rainfall typically between 600mm and 800mm. The soils in this specific area are often derived from sedimentary rocks or dolerite, ranging from stony loams to clay-based soils, which support the dry sclerophyll forest vegetation typical of the Tasmanian Midlands and East Coast.

This project serves as the flagship development for the proponent, Permagen, and was funded in partnership with Wollemi Capital. It is designed not only for carbon sequestration but also to create a biodiversity corridor, restoring native habitat on land that had become marginally productive for traditional farming.