{"id":944562,"date":"2026-10-29T00:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/944562\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T00:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:52:12","slug":"worldwide-legacy-almost-20m-raised-to-protect-majestic-tract-of-land-in-far-north-queensland-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/944562\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Worldwide legacy\u2019: almost $20m raised to protect majestic tract of land in far north Queensland | Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"

A majestic tract of land in far north Queensland<\/a> that links wet tropics and world heritage rainforest, and contains headwaters that flow to the Great Barrier Reef, could be bought and protected by Christmas, after a conservation group raised more than $19m in private donations to buy the cattle station.<\/p>\n

map<\/a><\/p>\n

Wooroora spans more than 20,000 hectares of largely intact wet sclerophyll forest and savanna woodland on the lands of the Jirrbal people about 100km south-west of Cairns \u2013 and borders Bush Heritage\u2019s existing 43,575-hectare Yourka Reserve in one of the most biodiverse regions in Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cassowary and tree-kangaroos are among at least 12 threatened species and more than 30 species of conservation significance that have already been recorded on Wooroora, which is also the northernmost refuge for koalas, and, according to the would-be owners, is almost certainly home to species yet unknown to science.<\/p>\n

Wooroora station is the most northerly habitat for koalas. Photograph: John Wybrow<\/p>\n

In 2024 a plan to clear more than 500ha of Wooroora station for a 42-turbine windfarm was rejected<\/a> because of what the then environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, described as the unacceptable impact on the environment, including the spectacled flying-fox and the northern greater glider.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of Bush Heritage, Rachel Lowry, said Wooroora would be the organisation\u2019s most ambitious single acquisition in its 35-year history to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis breaks the glass ceiling,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just for Bush Heritage, but for our sector more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowry said fundraising for the $24.7m to buy and manage the land for an initial five years has been going on for more than 18 months. She travelled to New York during the 2025 UN climate summit to make a presentation that helped result in a donation of almost $2.5m from the foundation associated with the US outdoor clothing company Patagonia.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re leaving a legacy worldwide\u2019 \u2026 Bush Heritage Australia\u2019s chief executive, Rachel Lowry.<\/p>\n

Given the country is a global biodiversity hotspot, Lowry said the protection \u201cforever\u201d of Wooroora was \u201cnot just a gift for Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we step in and we protect and manage country, like Wooroora, we\u2019re leaving a legacy worldwide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

An anonymous Australian philanthropist also donated $6m. Now Bush Heritage is appealing to the public to raise the final $5.3m it needs by the deadline of 24 December.<\/p>\n

Jirrbal senior elder Uncle Kurt Noble said the land purchase would allow traditional owners back on \u201cproper Jirrbal land\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of stories within the family connected to this country,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of the Dreamtime stories, as well as a little bit of the history\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a recorded interview from Wooroora provided by Bush Heritage, Noble said his great-grandmother was born on the station but that he had not previously had the opportunity to visit.<\/p>\n

A Lumholtz tree-kangaroo mother and baby at Wooroora station. Photograph: BG Thomson<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of our land is under private ownership, you know, and to have access, to be able to come back and forward, has been very restricted over many years \u2013 over generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Renewed access would not only enable care and restoration for the environment, he said, but also for \u201cthe cultural values of our land\u201d. Noble said it would allow \u201cour young people to grow up with a better understanding, not only of country, but of language, of song, of our cultural practices, of our different significant sites all over this country\u201d.<\/p>\n

Traditional custodian and the Wabubadda Aboriginal Corporation chair, Liam Roberts, said in another recorded video that Jirrbal were hoping to jointly manage the reserve.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve got rangers. We\u2019ve got work we\u2019d like to do on country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roberts said the station contained \u201csacred artefacts\u201d along old Jirrbal trails and creeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful camping country, it\u2019s beautiful fishing country, it\u2019s beautiful ecology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the old days the pathways were very much running from the dry country to the wet country, seasonally, and this is a key part of country that we can\u2019t find anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush Heritage\u2019s head of Queensland and the Northern Territory, Dr Jo Axford, said Wooroora includes one of the region\u2019s largest unprotected stretches of wet sclerophyll forest \u2013 towering eucalyptus grandis that forms a transition zone between ancient wet tropics rainforest and seasonally dry savannah woodlands.<\/p>\n

From its neighbouring reserve at Yourka, Bush Heritage had been actively seeking to acquire the station since 2010 because it provides the \u201cmissing piece\u201d in a 429,000-hectare nature corridor that runs up to Cape York.<\/p>\n

Uncle Kurt Noble, senior Jirrbal elder, said securing access to the land was vital for future generations. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amazing thing about Wooroora is that it\u2019s this long, narrow property \u2013 if you look at a map, Wooroora itself is almost like a key,\u201d Axford said.<\/p>\n

Wooroora rises to about 1,000m above sea level, but falls to 660m in 10km, which Axford said creates a diverse mosaic of habitat that will allow threatened species such as the critically endangered magnificent brood frog to find refuges and hopefully adapt to a changing climate.<\/p>\n

This \u201creally unusual\u201d topography makes Wooroora one of the only places on Earth home to both the rainforest dwelling southern cassowary and the plains roaming emu, where Lumholtz\u2019s tree-kangaroo clamber through canopies near koalas, she said.<\/p>\n

But Axford said she is confident the station also harboured undescribed species.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s looked at the invertebrates, nobody has gone into all those gullies and valleys, these huge rhyolite outcrops,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had the advantage of being able to fly over it in a chopper \u2013 and you just know there must be so many hidden secrets in there\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A majestic tract of land in far north Queensland that links wet tropics and world heritage rainforest, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-944562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}