The Wet Tropics is the only place on the planet with two interconnected World Heritage Areas – the Wet Tropics Forest and the Great Barrier Reef. These two ecosystems have a symbiotic relationship, with forests serving as a natural sponge, collecting and cleansing rainfall and releasing it slowly into streams and rivers.

However, both ecosystems are at risk from climate change and significant landscape restoration is needed across the region.

To scale up and coordinate forest restoration, over thirty organisations have joined forces by establishing the Wet Tropics Restoration Alliance.

Kylie Freebody, Coordinator of the Alliance, says it was instigated to enable and support the restoration industry to scale up their efforts to protect, connect and restore critical ecosystems to address the climate emergency.

“The Wet Tropics is comprised of rainforests, wet sclerophyll, dry woodlands, mangroves and swamps. Since European settlement there has been extensive clearing of forest areas so rather than being one big, connected ecosystem, the region is made up of large, fragmented areas of habitat that are disconnected by the road network, powerlines and farmland,” she says.

“It’s not just about planting trees, we need to be strategic. Focusing and coordinating our efforts to protect, reconnect and buffer existing forest areas, will make it more resilient to threats like climate change, pests and weeds.”

Around 48 per cent of the two million hectares of Wet Tropics bioregion is protected in the World Heritage Area. It is bordered by thousands of small land holdings owned and managed by private landholders, many of which have remnant forest that isn’t protected but could play a vital role in improving landscape functionality.

“Our partners work with landholders in priority rehabilitation areas and, where possible, support them with grants to restore, rehabilitate and protect the forest on their properties.”

Established in 2022, the purpose of the Restoration Alliance is to share knowledge and information about innovation in landscape repair, showcase different projects and provide opportunities for networking to help build capacity to scale up restoration work across the region.

“There are many groups and individuals in the Wet Tropics who are passionate and committed to conservation. If we work together strategically, we will be much more effective,” Kylie says.

The benefits of forest restoration are numerous including carbon sequestration, better water quality, flood mitigation, improved habitat for threatened species and refuge for wildlife migrating from hotter drier areas.

“Planting forests in the Wet Tropics is expensive, particularly rainforest, because trees are typically planted at higher densities. This requires labour intensive and costly manual maintenance to eliminate the competing grasses and weeds. So, we are looking at new ways to bring investment into the region so that the on-ground groups can get busy, and we can create jobs for the future. However, preserving the forest that already exists is the most cost-effective strategy.”