S.L. 549.123 Art. 3Interpretation.

(1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires:

"Act" means the Environment Protection Act;

"agricultural land" means arable land that is lawfully used for cultivation, and excludes any non-arable land or wild trees even if located within the confines of an agricultural holding;

"Authority" or "Competent Authority" means the Environment and Resources Authority as established in article 6 of the Act;

"compensatory planting" means the planting or provision of one or more trees, as a replacement or compensation for other trees that have been, or will be, uprooted, felled, damaged or removed;

"director" means the director responsible for environment protection within the Authority or any person delegated or commissioned by the Director or otherwise acting lawfully on his behalf;

"director responsible for plant health" means the director as defined in the Plant Quarantine Act or any person delegated or commissioned by the Director or otherwise acting lawfully on his behalf; "green areas, and natural or rural/green enclaves in urban area (development zone)" means areas that are specifically zoned in the relevant approved Local Plan, or any planning scheme, as areas which are to remain free from built development, or which are to be safeguarded as elements of natural heritage, or as surviving countryside remnants, notwithstanding their location within the urban area (development zone boundary);

"horticulturally-grown trees" means planted trees that are grown through horticulture and in artificial environments such as agricultural land, private gardens, roadsides and paved areas, and excludes trees in protected areas or in areas outside the development zone growing in their natural environment, whether originally planted or not;

"licensing authority" means the Authority or any other person delegated or commissioned by the Authority to lawfully act on its behalf;

"licensed tree specialist" shall have the same meaning assigned to it in regulation 19;

"near any tree" means any area within a distance of five metres away from the circumference of the tree canopy or within the distance of ten metres away from the tree trunk, whichever is the larger;

"outside the development zone" or "ODZ" means land outside the boundary for development in a planning scheme or local plan;

"permit" means an authorisation to carry out a specific intervention, and does not include any licence or registration issued in terms of regulation 19;

"person" means any person, whether natural or legal, corporate or incorporate, and includes any person acting on his own behalf or under the instructions of any other person;

"poison" means any substance, or concentration of such substance, which is harmful to a specimen, and includes, but is not limited to, any application of such substance through injection, spraying, deposition or irrigation;

" "pot" includes any receptacle or container;

"primary branches" means branches originating from the main trunk or trunks of tree; "protected area" means any area which is legally protected, scheduled or legally designated for conservation in view of its ecological, scientific or high landscape-related value, in terms of the Act or in terms of the Development

Planning Act, as well as any site protected in terms of regulation 7;

"protected tree" means all those trees listed in the First Schedule and those which are protected in urban public open spaces listed in the Second Schedule;

"prune" or "pruning" means the cutting away of primary branches, secondary branches, offshoots, or suckers;

"Register" means the Register of Licensed Tree Specialists duly authorised to carry out interventions on trees;

"registered farmer" means a farmer registered with the Agriculture Directorate;

"remove the bark" includes stripping off of the bark or part thereof, as well as ring-barking or girdling;

"secondary branches" means branches originating from the primary branches of the tree;

"site" includes a single property or more than one property, irrespective of who is the owner;

"specimen" means tree or parts of tree;

"surgical intervention" means any treatment required to save or heal a tree from disease, mechanical damage, or structural collapse, as well as any treatment to prevent further deterioration of an already damaged tree;

"tree" means a perennial plant, whether dead or alive, which in its adult form has a main woody trunk or trunks and woody branches and including representatives of the family Arecaceae (Palmae), but excludes plants cultivated in pots;

"tree preservation order" means any tree scheduled through a notice in the Gazette issued through the provisions of the Development Planning Act;

"tree protection area" shall have the meaning assigned to it in regulation 7 and includes any Tree Protection Areas declared through the Trees and Woodland Protection Regulations;

"urban conservation area" or "UCA" means a historic area (village core) as identified in a planning scheme or local plan or other currently approved planning policies; "urban public open space" includes roads, roadsides, pavements, piazzas, public gardens, parks, cemeteries, roundabouts, central strips and other traffic islands, and ancillary landscaped areas;

"wild trees" means trees which are not horticulturally-grown;

"woodland" includes natural or semi-natural vegetation communities characterised by trees such as natural forest or woodland remnants, semi-natural woodland, primary and secondary maquis, coastal maquis, and riparian or rupestral copses.