Build a Native Tree Nursery for the Daintree

PREPARATION IS UNDERWAY

The Rainforest Rescue crew up in the Daintree are so excited and plans are underway to prepare for the most productive nursery the Wet Tropics has ever seen!

Marine, our New Nursery Manager has been busy buying up nursery, plant and land equipment so her team is ready to go when the New Nursery structure is built.

The crew have stocked up on so many items such as secateurs, water sprayers, gloves, loppers, pruners, snips, saws, seed sorting sieves, generators, wheelbarrows ... and the list goes on

WHAT OUTCOMES WILL WE ACHIEVE?

Increased propagation of rare rainforest seedlings
From the current 12,000+ being grown at present, to equip the new nursery to be providing 100,000+ seedlings annually to restore damaged Daintree rainforest. Within the first twelve months of this funding, we believe the New nursery will be running with all necessary infrastructure and equipment, a team of volunteers, suppliers, installers and Jabalbina Rangers to increase much needed seedling propagation four-fold to 75,000+ seedlings annually. Ultimately, we hope to produce as many as 100,000 seedlings per year and then in time, a total of one million trees! With the increase in the propagation of these rare seedlings, we will also ensure strong genetic diversity: this is the key to long term sustainability of the population of rainforest species. This secures the species’ health and facilitates evolution and adaptation. If genetic diversity is not managed properly, it can lead to inbreeding depression and can eventually lead to extinction.

Increased clean water
Flowing to the Daintree rivers and Great Barrier Reef; water tests prove our replanted rainforest significantly reduces sedimentation levels that flowed from the Daintree River to the ocean and directly to the Reef. Sediments that are increased due to agriculture and poor riparian system management is a serious problem, contributing to destruction of the Reef. Trees and active restoration are needed to make a positive difference for reef health. Our restoration efforts have great co-benefits that impact other living systems, which we want to significantly increase through this Project.

Increased provision of kilometers of wildlife corridors
Projects like NightWings, for which the current nursery has now provided over 70 - 80,000 seedlings, create wildlife corridors, from the headlands to the mangroves, offering endemic wildlife sanctuary and a chance to thrive again. 'Growing a Rainforest Community' is an international award-winning short film about some of our restoration efforts in the Daintree that demonstrates the progress that has been made at NightWings in just under two years utilising the seedlings grown at the current nursery.

MAKING HISTORY

The success of the New Nursery and, the awesome outcomes to be achieved for Nature, would not be possible without the funding we received from all of donors - large and small - in supporting the operations and running of the New Nursery, to be built in early 2022.

You are part of history and we are in good company, as partner Great Barrier Reef Legacy (GBRL), Dr Dean Miller explains the benefits of having rainforest replanted – and this time, on a huge scale with the New Nursery:

‘’Great Barrier Reef Legacy is very pleased to partner with Rainforest Rescue and work together to expand coastal rainforest habitat while also improving water quality for the benefit of both the Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef ... With outstanding contributions to improving rainforest abundance and biodiversity that has downstream effects not only for habitats and ecological systems, but also our communities.’