Thousands of trees are being planted at Milton on the New South Wales south coast in a bid to expand and conserve a rare patch of subtropical rainforest.
The rainforest is unique to the area because it occurs in the region's volcanic soils.
David Bain, a threatened species officer with the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, said it was home to many flora species not found elsewhere in the south-east of Australia.
"It's a very different style of rainforest to those found in the tropical parts of Queensland," he said.
"A lot of it is what we call a dry rainforest because the rainfall isn't as high here as it is further north.
"We have large lianas here — big vines — that are half-a-metre round and hundreds of years old and they dominate lots of the parts of the community.
"It has a really important place in the rainforest communities of Australia because it's this outpost of the last of the subtropical rainforest here on eastern Australia."
Painstaking work
The project to protect the area began in 2018 after the prolonged drought caused many of the plants to defoliate.
Over the past three years, local Landcare volunteers have been collecting seeds from the rainforest and have painstakingly propagated more than 10,000 trees to be replanted across the region.
"We get the seed, we put it in the seed trays on the heated benches over winter and then it is misted and irrigated," said Milton Rural Landcare volunteer Sybille Davidson.
"The plants do take a while to kick on from the very early stage — it's a slow process.
"We've learnt a lot on the job, and it's been quite an interesting experience for us."
Ravaged by fire
Much of the work was thwarted when bushfire tore through the region almost 12 months ago.
"In fact, one farm has completely lost everything that we planted including all of the tree guards that just melted, literally, into the ground," said Milton Rural Landcare president Suellen Harris.
"It's a bit heartbreaking because you're looking at a lot of man hours — not just for the propagation of the plants but also the planting."
David Bain said it was a devastating blow for the rainforest that had also been subjected to land clearing in previous decades.
"It burnt about 60 per cent of the distribution of this rainforest and we've already lost about 90 per cent of this rainforest over historic land clearing," he said.
"So it's a group effort to look at how we can manage the current threats to the rainforest and try to increase the extent and resilience of the patches of this forest that are still remaining."
Future preservation
Much of the forest lies on the property of Milton dairy farmer Robert Miller who has been working alongside volunteers to protect the forest, which is also home to threatened species of native fauna, including the powerful owl and the grey-headed flying fox.
"I made the mistake early on, all I planted was eucalyptus on the farm, now we're planting a great mix of trees and it brings the wildlife and the birdlife back," Mr Miller said.
"We've had a great recovery, a lot of trees that we thought we may have lost have come back after the fire.
"If you want to bring nature back you've got to have the environment to bring nature and by planting the trees and creating these rainforest areas that's exactly what it's doing."
The project is one of many being funded by the New South Wales Government's five-year, $100 million Saving Our Species program that commenced in 2016.
