Project Information

Rainforest Rescue provides an opportunity for you to ‘sponsor’ the planting of a tree or trees to help restore our rainforests.

The Daintree rainforests are of international conservation importance as one of the most significant regional ecosystems in the world.

Planting rainforest trees will help to restore our rainforests and protect the many threatened species of plants and animals that live there.

Daintree Critical Habitat for Endangered Species

The Daintree Rainforests are critical habitat for the endangered Cassowary. They are also vital habitat for the primitive Musky Rat-kangaroo, the rare Bennett\’s Tree-kangaroo, endangered Spotted-tailed Quoll, and a myriad of smaller creatures little known to science.

The Daintree Rainforests are the last extensive areas of lowland rainforest still connected and linked as a continuum with the main rainforest to the west. The connectivity of these rainforests is integral to the long term survival and sustainability of these forests and their fauna.

The major threat to Daintree biodiversity is an increase in residential development. Increased development leads to more wildlife killed on roads, an increase in invasive weeds displacing native species and the further loss of wildlife through domestic dog attacks.

International Conservation Significance

The Daintree rainforests are of international conservation importance. They are considered one of the most significant regional ecosystems in the world.

The Daintree rainforest contains 65% of bat and butterfly species, 30% of frog, marsupial and reptile species and 20% of bird species in Australia. Unique animals found in the Daintree region include the critically endangered Southern Cassowary, Musky Rat-kangaroos, Ulysses Butterflies and Sugar Gliders.

The Daintree rainforests possess one of the greatest concentrations of primitive flowering plants in the world and contain more plant taxa with primitive characteristics than any other tropical forest.

They record the eight major stages of the evolution of land plants and in particular the origin, evolution and dispersal of the flowering plants (Angiosperms).

Of the 19 most primitive plant families world wide, 12 are found in the Daintree; a similar number of primitive families to that found in all the rainforest of South America.