Propagate and Plant: Cassowary Conservation

A SUCCESS STORY

This last fiscal year proved a great Rainforest Rescue success. Through the growing support of Rainforest Rescuers like you, we are continuing to increase the positive impact we’re having in the World Heritage Daintree Rainforest.

This is a Rainforest Rescue success story but without you; without your passionate concern for the environment, the belief you have in Rainforest Rescue to make a difference in the world and your support … none of this would be possible.

Through our buy-back efforts we:

• rescued Lot 24 Cape Tribulation Road in July2020 … a beautiful property, strategically located to increase an established wildlife corridor;
• partnered with Queensland Trust for Nature, which saw us rescue 929 acres in the Daintree and;
• were able to rescue and protect forever the magnificent Lot 18 Cape Kimberley Road.

And, through our restoration efforts we:

• had a special community tree planting in September 2020 at NightWings where 3,012 trees were planted( a huge achievement considering the global difficulties we’ve all had to face as a result of the pandemic);
• successfully organised a community tree planting in May 2021, with 120 Rainforest Rescuers coming from near and far to put 3,500 trees in the ground, and;
• after over a decade of dedicated restoration, Kurranji Bubu – the land formerly known as Lot 46 – achieved Nature Refuge status.

GROWING A RAINFOREST

The current Rainforest Rescue Nursery provides around 11,000 trees a year for planting. These trees go towards all our restoration efforts, and that restoration works. The nursery grows many different species that are food sources for the Cassowary, including:

• Syzygium graveolens
• Cananga odorata
• Ficus spp.
• Cryptocarya oblata
• Elaeocarpus grandis
• Nauclea orientalis
• Beilschmiedia tooram
• Endiandra compressa
• Prunus turneriana
• Neolitsea dealbata
• Syzygium tierneyanum
• Terminalia sericocarpa
• Litsea leefeana
• Syzygium cormiflorum
• Cerbera floribunda
• Chionanthus ramiflorus
• Cryptocarya triplinervis

The treatment of Cassowary plums at our nursery, for example, is to basically mimic what the cassowary’s enzymes do to the fruit in their own belly—cleaning the endocarp (woody part around the seed) from the fleshy part—our Nursery Manager, Marine Deliens, soaks the seeds for up to 2 weeks, to soften the flesh. After which she peels off the flesh. These are then propagated in large trays and, as soon as they germinate, are transplanted. They have a very big tap root, in order to avoid any damage to these roots they must be potted up quickly. Up to 3 seedlings can come up from only 1 seed … if this is the case, they are gently separated and potted individually. They usually take 3-5 months to germinate and are fast growing.

In Queensland’s rainforests, Southern Cassowaries are the only native animal capable of dispersing the seeds of large-fruited plants and trees over long distances (distributing close to 240 different species). Without Cassowaries, these plants and trees would only occur in concentrated pockets around parent trees or in places where dispersal by gravity can occur, such as gullies or the bottom of slopes.

Through restoration and the creation of Wildlife Corridors, we are helping the Cassowary in its own reforestation efforts, and encouraging the Cassowary to return, thus ensuring their survival and the survival of other threatened rainforest species such as the Musky Rat-kangaroos and Spectacled Fruit Bats.

Without your support, none of this would be possible. Thank You.