Beachside forests are feeling the love, with a blitz on invasive weeds and escaped garden plants and fruit trees at Mission Beach, Kurrimine Beach and Ingham’s Forrest Beach.

Littoral rainforest is critically endangered on the east coast of Australia and work is underway to better protect what is left in the Wet Tropics region.

Work crews target Forrest Beach

Work crews from Hinchinbrook Shire Council have been removing weeds including lantana, prickly pear and guinea grass from the largest patch of littoral rainforest in their region – an 80- hectare strip of council reserve between the ocean and wetlands just north of homes at Forrest Beach.

They are also removing garden plants, and cashew trees believed to have spread from an agricultural trial in the area back in the 1960s.

Removing cashew trees 

Biosecurity and Public Spaces Portfolio Councillor Kate Milton said cashew trees had been taking over some areas of forest.

“First our council crews spent time walking through the forest area mapping weed sites, then they treated areas,’’ Cr Milton said.

“There is a lot less now but seed banks are a problem. Our crews are doing follow-up work at the moment and that’s something we’ll keep doing once a year.”

Hinchinbrook Shire Council received funding from not-for-profit organisation Terrain NRM through a project centred on the Wet Tropics region’s littoral rainforest, lowland rainforest, Mabi forest and broad leaf tea-tree woodland – all of them threatened ecological communities. The project is also helping threatened species in wet sclerophyll forest and upland rainforest.

Preserving an endangered forest type

Terrain NRM’s Tony O’Malley said Forrest Beach’s littoral rainforest was in good condition considering its closeness to developed areas.

“The Forrest Beach community and Council are to be congratulated for preserving this outstanding patch of beachfront rainforest with its at least a century-old white apple trees.

“The best investment is keeping these kind of forests in the best possible condition so they are more resilient to threats like erosion, pest species and fire,’’ he said. “As well as its ecological value, including being home to wildlife, this reserve is an erosion buffer and a scenic area for the Forrest Beach community.”

Twelve new projects are helping to improve and connect rainforests from Bloomfield to Cardwell and west to Wondecla.

Landholders, traditional owners and threatened species recovery groups are embarking on tree-planting, weed control and habitat protection initiatives through a ‘Building Rainforest Resilience’ project focused on nationally significant rainforest areas.

It’s part of Terrain NRM’s vision to build one strong, healthy and intact forest system in the Wet Tropics region.

Working with landholders in priority areas

Terrain’s Tony O’Malley said 300 landholders – with large properties beside world heritage areas and within the region’s top-six cassowary corridors or with Mabi or littoral rainforest refugia – had been invited to be part of the project.

One of the latest grant recipients is the Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji Peoples Prescribed Body Corporate (GMYPPBC).  The Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji rangers will be removing weeds, including lantana, giant bramble and guava, from cassowary habitat on Aboriginal land within the GMYPPBC Trustee area in Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire east of Cairns.

Rangers Cadmas Sands and Justin Keyes said the work area was around a traditional walking track used for trade.

“It’s part of our story but nobody’s done work there for years. We want to clean up the weeds. We’ll give it our best to get it back to where it was. This funding allows our generation to go back on more country and work and buy materials and protect our country.”

Mr O’Malley said the work was right on the edge of the rainforest and would help the forest recover the area, through natural regeneration, once rangers removed the weeds.

Supporting Traditional Owners

“The Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji Peoples PBC manages 8,200 hectares of Aboriginal land and it’s one of the biggest coastal forests in the region,” he said. “This is about supporting the Traditional Owners to keep a large habitat patch in good condition.”

Endangered cassowary and Mabi rainforests are the winners in four new projects for the Far North.

Terrain NRM has awarded grants to Barron Catchment Care, Kuranda Conservation, C4 and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service for work to extend wildlife corridors and create nature refuges.

Terrain’s Tony O’Malley said the $120,000 investment in rainforest restoration, protection and expansion was focused on land in the Kuranda, Tablelands, Innisfail and Tully regions.

“These projects are all in priority locations identified by the cassowary and Mabi recovery teams for revegetation, weed management and habitat protection,’’ he said. “The work will benefit a whole range of rainforest species because of the strategic locations.”

More than 100ha of private land on four properties in the Kuranda region’s Black Mountain Corridor will become nature refuges as part of the project. On the Tablelands, hundreds of trees will be planted to extend Mabi rainforest in a forestry lease area being transferred to national park, and in the Innisfail-Tully region highland-lowland wildlife corridors will be extended at Smith’s Gap and Eubenangee.

The projects are supported by Terrain NRM through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

Kuranda Conservation’s Jax Bergersen said her group would be working with landholders and Queensland Trust for Nature to create nature refuge agreements over large blocks of land in critical endangered cassowary habitat.

“We are working to link a very narrow part of the Wet Tropics world heritage rainforest area with prime ecological blocks of land to make a wider endangered cassowary corridor,’’ Ms Bergersen said. “We’ll be starting with four properties but there are another 20 in the wings thanks to the interest of landholders in this region.

“With ‘nature refuge’ status on land titles, rainforest can be better protected into the future. We’re aiming for a cassowary corridor stretching 100-200km from Julatten to the Barron Gorge National Park.”

C4 president Peter Rowles said his group would be revegetating another hectare of land on a property in the Smith’s Gap wildlife corridor near Tully, where more than 2000 rainforest trees have been planted since it was bought by C4 and Queensland Trust for Nature last year.