Thiaki Rainforest Restoration

Thiaki Rainforest Restoration is an environmental planting project located at Thiaki Creek on the Atherton Tablelands, approximately 15km from the town of Malanda in Far North Queensland. It was registered in June 2014 and covers an area of 44.65 hectares.

The project operates under the 2012 Reforestation Modelling Tool methodology, which involves establishing permanent plantings of a mix of native tree species on land that has been cleared of forest for at least five years. Standard environmental planting projects require establishing trees at a sufficient density, typically at least 200 stems per hectare, to successfully achieve a forest canopy of at least 20% crown cover and a height of 2 metres.

The Atherton Tablelands region is widely known for dairy and beef cattle farming, having been heavily cleared for grazing and agriculture throughout the 20th century. The area is classified within the Wet Tropics bioregion and experiences a high rainfall environment, typically ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 mm annually. The soils across the project are deep, red volcanic earths situated on precipitous slopes of 30 to 40 degrees.

This project was established by ecologists Dr. Penny van Oosterzee and Noel Preece, who sought to demonstrate how low-value, steep cattle paddocks could be returned to native rainforest. Collaborating with several universities, the property serves as a large-scale, 64-plot experimental demonstration site to test cost-effective rainforest restoration for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Interestingly, early trials at the site proved that planting trees by hand using forestry spades was a quarter of the time and one-sixth of the expense compared to the local practice of using motorised augers. By restoring vital rainforest connections, the site supports endemic wildlife including endangered cassowaries, tree-kangaroos, and rainforest possums, which allows the proponent to earn a premium on the ACCUs generated by the project. A carbon abatement contract with the government for 20,554 tonnes was successfully completed in 2018.