Protect a Rainforest

As 2025 draws to a close, I want to pause briefly, to thank you.

Because of your support, this has been a landmark year for Rainforest Rescue. A year where ambition turned into action, and momentum became real progress on the ground.

In 2025, together we:

• Secured the 30 ha 110 Cape Tribulation Road — the Gateway site, creating a long-term, visionary foundation for onward restoration, education and community engagement. Our 2026 Annual Community Tree Planting will be held here for the first time, make a note in the diary for Saturday 16th May next year
• Protected the 12 ha, intact Degarra propertynorth of Cape Tribulation, strengthening a critical wildlife corridor adjoining the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. This northern gem is the 47th property to be secured through your support, safe in the Rainforest Rescue Protection Portfolio
• Grew a phenomenal 40,000 seedlings at the Cow Bay Native Nursery, while our tireless Restoration Team planted over 38,000 trees. This immense outcome meant that we completed two restoration projects, at NightWings Rainforest Centre and the former Cow Bay Airstrip, then began restoration around the 'Green Island of Hope' at 110 Cape Tribulation Road. The latter is a pocket of forest regrowth clinging to a creek line that runs through the property
• Launched theDaintree Oxbow Project— a ten-year vision to restore flood-prone, exhausted ex-farmland at landscape scale reaching into the hundreds of hectares, which in time will see tremendous benefits for nature, tourism, the local economy, and community

All of this matters. And it brings us to this moment.

WHY LOT 3 MATTERS NOW

Lot 3 will be our second Oxbow purchase and a vital part of the long-term restoration plan.

It borders one of the world’s most biodiverse mangrove systems, protecting rainforest, mangroves and the Great Barrier Reef in one connected landscape.

Securing Lot 3 will:

• Give mangroves space to adapt as sea levels rise
• Prevent inappropriate development at a critical time
• Lock in restoration, biodiversity and nature-positive jobs for the region

With major changes underway in Douglas Shire and our increased capacity, this land is optimal for original-state restoration.

This year also saw the launch of Australia’sNature Repair Market — rewarding real, measurable biodiversity restoration. In fact, 110 Cape Tribulation Rd is a Beta Site for another kind of Biodiversity Credit scheme, Cassowary Credits, created by Terrain NRM up here in the Wet Tropics to help incentivise and support restoration…just like this.

Watch this space as we discover how the Daintree Oxbow Development Application is received by Council’s planners, and what Council recommends, in February of next year. We are growing tens of thousands of trees, ready to go in once the rains ease in the coming months.

Approval processes are under way through Douglas Shire Council, having garnered strong community endorsement — including 40 letters of support from institutions like Bush Heritage Australia, The Wilderness Society, Greening Australia, adjacent councils, our Indigenous partners, academics, regional businesses as well as farmers who currently own land in the Oxbow and are ready to see it restored.

A clear plan for restoration at scale is on the cusp of being 2026's headline news. This means that Lot 3 is an exceptionally rare opportunity to turn this year’s momentum into lasting protection.

GROWING, TOGETHER

On a more personal note, recently as dusk settled over our Native Nursery and frogs and nocturnal birds began their chorus, I watched as night fell and sensed, very strongly, across this ex-airstrip we’ve replanted over the last two years, that the forest is growing closer.

Where there was once open ground, there is now shelter and life.

This is what you make possible. What we are doing together is really wonderful and really significant.

Thank you for standing with us, and for the future you’re helping to restore.

From everyone at Rainforest Rescue, we wish you a peaceful and restorative festive season with your friends and family.

For the rainforests,
Branden and the Rainforest Rescue team

Links:

• The BIG One Why Lot 3 matters