Planting Layout: Belt and Block Plantings

To optimally sequester carbon, restore biodiversity and improve landscape resilience, how you lay out your plantings matters. For environmental plantings projects, two common spatial designs are often referenced; namely block plantings and belt plantings.

Understanding their regulatory restrictions, differences, strengths, and limitations will help choose the most suitable planting design (or combination thereof) for a given site.

The Basics

Rules as per the method

Yield Differences

Audits

The Basics

Block Plantings

As the name suggests, block plantings are patches of revegetation that form a block with the planted area often consisting of several contiguous rows of trees, shrubs or native species.

Block plantings don't have to be fence-to-fence and can be designed to integrate with grazing and operational practicality, future farm infrastructure, or other land uses.

A common misconception is that a block planting means planting an entire paddock, removing the area from future agricultural use. This is not necessarily true, as you can combine dense patches with open or lightly planted areas (as long as you meet the 200 stems/ha minimum planting density requirement) and you can maintain perimeter fencing with internal laneways for ease of management.

Belt Plantings

Belt plantings are linear long strips of plantings that often adjoin or follow paddock edges, fence lines, or waterways (riparian zones). They are often integrated as structural elements within the overall farm layout, e.g. functioning as shelterbelts, windbreaks, or wildlife corridors.

Linear plantings are commonly established as shelterbelts or windbreaks, designed to protect paddocks, stock, and crops from prevailing winds. Unlike block plantings, they are typically planted in straight rows rather than random patterns, which allows for better control over spacing, species mix, and orientation. Getting these elements right from the outset is crucial to ensure the belt performs as intended, providing uniform shelter, a consistent wind barrier, and planned access that integrates neatly with the surrounding farm operations.

Most shelterbelts or windbreaks are made up of multiple rows; the most common configuration having between 3–5 rows with a layered structure (outer rows use hardy, fast-growing species to absorb wind energy and protect the inner rows, and inner rows use taller or longer-lived species, which build height). Shelterbelts typically aim to reduce wind speed over a distance of 10–20 times their height downwind. Multi-row plantings are much better at achieving this consistently.

Sustainable Farms has more information about how to design for improved on-farm natural assets.

Belt planting isn’t just 'plant a strip of trees and get more carbon', but require careful design and management to realise its carbon and ecological benefits.

Even though belts seem easier to establish and are known to have a higher carbon yield, they do have more method rules to comply with (eg a wide linear planting must be >20m and ≤40m), as well as having a higher perimeter-to-area ratio and so fencing costs per hectare may actually be higher.

Rules as per the method

The EP method imposes rules about spacing, maximum widths, and distancing between plantings.

Belts (referred to as narrow or wide linear plantings) are more constrained than blocks. Blocks can be more flexibly shaped, placed, and sized to match landform or farm operations.

In general:

• Belts can be classified as narrow or wide linear plantings.
• Mixed-species environmental plantings can be planted in rows using tubestock or direct seeding, or randomly using tubestock or broadcast seeding or both.
• The long side of a belt must be located at least 40 meters from other trees (to avoid merging into a 'block' classification).

Narrow linear plantings

• Planting density: 800 stems/ha 
• Stem-to-stem spacing: ≤ 6 m
• If planting randomly: total width of the planting ≤ 20 m 
• If row based planting: row spacing ≤ 6 m and restricted to max 2 rows

Therefore the effective width of a row based planting cannot exceed 6 metres

• Distance to different plantings: ≥ 40 m

Wide linear Planting

• Planting density: 800 stems/ha  
• Width of the planting: >20m and ≤40m
• Stem-to-stem spacing: ≤ 6 m
• If row based planting: row spacing: ≤ 6 m (and no cap on number of rows) 
• Distance to different plantings: ≥ 40 m

Given the fact that linear plantings are commonly established as shelterbelts or windbreaks, which are typically planted in straight rows rather than random patterns and typically made up of more than 2 rows - the wide linear planting is most applicable

Block planting

• Planting density: 200 stems/ha
• Width of the planting: >40m
• Stem-to-stem spacing: ≤5m
• If row based planting: row spacing n/a and >1 row

Yield Differences

This is because trees in belts compete less and so grow broader crowns and thicker stems, accumulating more carbon per tree. So even though there are fewer trees, their individual biomass is much higher, so total carbon per hectare is greater.

Trees in block plantings compete strongly for light, water, and nutrients. Only the outer trees benefit from the 'edge effect': intercepting more light and growing faster. This edge advantage is one of the biggest drivers of belt productivity.

The EP method / FullCAM accounts for these differences through different yield factors based on the planting configuration (block vs belt) and spacing (belts = higher growth = higher carbon credit/ha). More information can be found in the Reforestation by environmental or mallee plantings FullCAM method 2024, outlining how the yield / growth factors used in FullCAM are explicitly linked to planting geometry, spacing, and density as defined in the method.

Audits

Both belt and block plantings require audit reports, as per the method's audit requirements: at least 3 scheduled audits and extra audits can be triggered. As blocks are less constrained, the compliance may potentially be simpler.

A way to reduce audit costs is to set up the project to qualify as a low-risk environmental plantings project that uses remote sensing instead (no ground audits).

To qualify:

• Land Tenure: The person running the project must be the owner, leaseholder, or native title holder for the entire project area.
• Size Limit: The project's total carbon planting area must be no more than 200 hectares.
• Planting Type: It must be a mixed-species block planting.
• Monitoring: The Clean Energy Regulator must be able to monitor the project using geospatial tools, like satellite mapping.

More information can be found in the method, described under 'Alternative assurance for low-risk projects' (previously referred to as the Environmental Plantings Pilot now closed to new projects).

Conclusion

How you lay out your environmental plantings directly impacts carbon yield, regulatory compliance, audit complexity, and on-farm functionality.

Block plantings offer greater flexibility in shape and integration with other land uses, and they can be designed to work with grazing and farm infrastructure rather than replacing it. They have fewer design constraints, which can simplify compliance and auditing.

Belt plantings, on the other hand, offer higher per-hectare carbon yields, largely thanks to lower competition and stronger edge effects. Their linear structure can provide valuable shelterbelts, windbreaks, and corridors that enhance biodiversity and farm resilience. But belts also bring stricter method rules, more complex design considerations, and potentially higher establishment costs per hectare.

Selecting between block and belt planting is not a one-size-fits-all decision. The best design will depend on site conditions, farm layout, landholder objectives, carbon strategy, and long-term management capacity. A hybrid approach can potentially deliver the best carbon and ecological outcomes.

Get in touch with our team to help you plan your planting, aligning with method rules, farm practicality, and landscape resilience.