Ten years in the making: NightWings Rainforest Centre earns high conservation protection

Restored rainforest habitat at dawn, NightWings Rainforest Centre. ©Rainforest Rescue/Martin Stringer

Good things often take time, and after a decade of tree planting and connective habitat restoration, NightWings Rainforest Centre in the Daintree lowlands at Wonga has been declared an area of high nature conservation value under Queensland's Vegetation Management Act 1999.

Eighteen hectares of restored rainforest are now mapped as Category A, the highest protection level under the Act, on par with remnant vegetation in an endangered regional ecosystem. Considering that the site was cleared ex-sugar cane land until the project began in 2015, the declaration is an encouraging indicator of positive restoration outcomes.

Over 119,000 trees have been planted during the project, led by Rainforest Rescue in collaboration with landholder Annie Schoenberger. The project was Rainforest Rescue’s first restoration of ex-sugar cane land; it’s where they developed their understanding about land that had been taken from habitat, to be cleared and farmed for decades. And it’s part of their journey from small- to large-scale restoration projects.

NightWings sits within a Strategic Rehabilitation Area under the Far North Queensland regional plan, helping reconnect fragmented forest patches for wildlife movement and genetic diversity. Southern cassowary and Spectacled Flying-fox are two threatened species that have been recently documented in this native habitat corridor.

Once the site matures further, Annie and Rainforest Rescue will pursue a Nature Refuge declaration for NightWings to perpetually conserve this important Wet Tropics site.

It's noted that Annie’s commitment to conservation extends even further, with NightWings included in her will to be gifted to Rainforest Rescue as a legacy for the restored property. Forever habitat for the flora and fauna of the Daintree.

Read more about the restoration story of NightWings on the Rainforest Rescue website.(https://www.rainforestrescue.org.au/nightwings-high-conservation-protection/)