New Project to remove forest-smothering turbina vine

A campaign is happening on the Atherton Tablelands to remove turbina vine and better protect endangered Mabi forest.

Landholders and organisations have joined forces to remove the South American vine from more than 50 hectares of Mabi forest over the past month – as part of a bigger Terrain NRM project to protect and restore some of the Wet Tropics’ most threatened forest eco-systems.

Barron Catchment Care’s Bryony Barnett said turbina could form 20-metre vine towers over native trees, smothering and out-competing the natural vegetation.

“Mabi Forest is confined to North Queensland, mostly on the Atherton Tablelands, and is listed nationally as a critically endangered rainforest ecological community because only small, isolated patches remain,’’ she said.

“We really need to look after what’s left. This type of rainforest is home to iconic and threatened plants and animals including Lumholtz’s Tree-Kangaroo, and to over 100 bird species.”

Vine removed from 50+ hectares of forest

Terrain NRM has funded Barron Catchment Care to work with landholders and turbina specialists, NQ Land Management Services, on a vine removal project that began last month and will continue until mid-2026.

NQ Land Management Services’ Geoff Onus said turbina was a “sleeper weed” until Cyclone Larry allowed it to take hold in 2006.

“We’ve had removal projects since that have put a big hole in its progress but we now know the seeds can remain viable for about 10 years. In this project, we’ve been working on the edges of forest, and further in, hand-pulling the smaller patches, cutting larger vines at the base and applying herbicide, and blanket spraying larger infestation areas.

A chance for Mabi Forest to regenerate

“It’s a tough job, walking and sometimes crawling through the forest in a grid pattern with five metre spacings. But it’s rewarding. There are more infestations than we can tackle through this project but what we are doing here is giving these outlying areas of forest some breathing space, freeing them from vines and giving them a chance to regenerate.”

Landholder Will Cairns has welcomed the project, which follows his own work to remove turbina from a largely rainforest property that he and his partner Andi have owned for four years.