14Activities to be carried out in the replanting project

14 Activities to be carried out in the replanting project

The replanting project activities (1) The replanting project must involve the following (the replanting project activities): (a) environmental planting on land within the project area; and (b) the maintenance of the plantings for the permanence period of the project, (which may require staggered plantings or remedial plantings); and (c) appropriate complementary activities and management actions to: (i) support the establishment and maintenance of the plantings; and (ii) minimise threats to the plantings and to the achievement of the project outcome. Use of fire (2) Where appropriate management actions involve the use of fire, the project proponent must ensure the following: (a) that burning does not take place within an activity area where the plantings are less than 5 years old; (b) that no more than 20% of an activity area is deliberately burnt in a calendar year, unless limited to the ground layer for the express purpose of removing weed seedbanks; (c) that burning does not take place within an activity area more than once every 7 years; (d) that areas burnt by bushfire, or by a burn conducted in response to an imminent threat from bushfire (a bushfire event), is not deliberately burnt for 5 years following the bushfire event. (3) Subsection (2) does not prevent the appropriate use of fire to mitigate risks to life, property or biodiversity (including risks from a bushfire or potential bushfire) that are taken in accordance with relevant Commonwealth, State or Territory laws. Grazing pressure (4) The project proponent must ensure that all livestock are excluded from an activity area until the plantings in the activity area have become established so that 90% of individual trees that comprise the plantings in the activity area have reached 1.5 m. (5) Where total grazing pressure (including from livestock, vertebrate pests and overabundant native species such as kangaroos and wombats) presents a threat either to the establishment of plantings prior to or during planting or direct seeding, or to the achievement of the project outcome—the project proponent must manage the grazing pressure appropriately, in a manner that is consistent with any applicable Commonwealth, State or Territory laws or policies. Thinning (6) The appropriate management actions may include thinning, but the project proponent must ensure that no thinning is carried out during the 10 years following registration. Civil penalties (7) Subsections (2), (4), (5) and (6) are imposed for the purposes of paragraphs 45(3)(a) and (b) of the Act (which imposes a civil penalty for a breach).