The Society

The Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, founded in 1982, is a national, non-government organisation with headquarters in Brisbane. Its goal, through research, lobbying, public education and grass-roots support, is to protect, repair and restore the rainforests of Australia and to maximise the protection of forest biodiversity.

Achievements

The Australian Rainforest Conservation Society has played a leading role in protecting significant areas of Australia's rainforests. Through its hard-working volunteers and scientific advisers, the Society has produced landmark studies and participated in forums and successful campaigns that have had a major influence on government policy and initiatives for rainforests and other native forests.

The Society has:

• led the campaign that stopped logging in North Queenslandís tropical rainforests and prepared the nomination that gained their World Heritage Listing;



• compiled and presented scientific arguments to the Commission of Inquiry that brought an end to logging on Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and prepared the justification for the successful World Heritage Listing of the Island and its rainforests;



• successfully campaigned against rainforest logging on the Central Queensland coast, thus ending in 1994 all logging of "pure" rainforest on public land in the State;
  
  
• prepared the successful World Heritage nomination for the Central Eastern Rainforests of Australia that stretch from Barrington Tops just north of the Hunter River in New South Wales to the McPherson and Main Ranges in southern Queensland, thus increasing the area of World Heritage-listed rainforest by 50 per cent;
  
  
• played a leading and critical role in the highly successful South-East Queensland Forests Agreement that will protect more than 1 million hectares of forest with a transition from native forest logging to plantations;
  
  
• developed and debated at international forums comprehensive analyses of the sustainability of rainforest logging, using Australia as a test case against industrial forestry elsewhere in the world's rainforests;
  
  
• won national and international awards and recognition for our success in rainforest conservation;
  
  
• initiated a national campaign to protect, repair and restore Australiaís unique rainforest heritage.
  

The Challenge

Rainforest is the single most important biological resource we hold in trust for Australia's future. Rainforests cover barely 0.3 per cent of the continent, yet more than half of our plants and animals use those forests. Now extremely scarce, our rainforests are highly fragmented and barely large enough to survive the pressures from recurrent drought, fires, invading alien plants and animals, roading, logging and wildlife smuggling.

If we are to honour that trust for future generations, we must protect all that remains, repair the damage we have wrought and restore what we can of what has already been lost.