Forest Lodge Rainforest Reserve protects 80.94 hectares of old-growth cool temperate rainforest at Pyengana in northeast Tasmania, around 26 km inland from St Helens. Rainforest Rescue purchased Forest Lodge in August 2012, protecting a remarkable pocket of ancient rainforest within the forested landscape of the Rattler Range. Today, Forest Lodge is protected forever through a Conservation Covenant registered on the title of the land.

An Ancient Forest

Step beneath the canopy at Forest Lodge and the landscape changes. Old-growth Myrtle Beech, Sassafras and Celery-top Pine rise overhead, while ferns, mosses and lichens thrive in the cool, damp conditions below.

Historical records describe a forest rich in ferns, including large Soft Tree Ferns (Dicksonia antarctica), known in Tasmania as Man Ferns. With average annual rainfall of around 1,366 mm recorded for the area, moisture helps sustain the lush conditions characteristic of Tasmania’s cool temperate rainforests.

Some of these forests have taken centuries to grow. Protecting them means protecting not only the trees we see today, but the complex habitat that has developed around and beneath them over generations.

Part of a Bigger Landscape

Forest Lodge sits on the eastern slopes of the Rattler Range and adjoins the Mount Victoria Regional Reserve on three sides, connecting this privately protected rainforest with a much larger conservation landscape.

The property is remote. There is no nearby road access and reaching it is difficult, which has allowed this forest to remain a wonderfully wild place. In 2024, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania advised Rainforest Rescue that they did not believe Forest Lodge had been visited since its initial assessment in 2011.

Here, an 80.94-hectare property becomes part of something much bigger: a connected forest landscape where habitat can continue beyond a line on a map.

Habitat for Tasmania’s Wildlife

Old-growth rainforest provides important shelter, feeding and breeding habitat for Tasmania’s wildlife.

The original assessment of Forest Lodge did not record threatened fauna on the property itself, but identified suitable habitat and records of threatened species within the surrounding landscape, including the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, Tasmanian Devil and Spotted-tail Quoll.

Protecting Forest Lodge within the broader Rattler Range landscape helps keep this habitat intact, allowing the forest and the wildlife that depend upon it to remain undisturbed.

From Forestry Land to Forever Protected

Forest Lodge was once among a number of Tasmanian properties owned by timber company Gunns Ltd. When thousands of hectares of its land were put on the market in 2010, an extraordinary opportunity emerged.

Rainforest Rescue responded to a supporter’s request to investigate whether some of this rainforest could instead be purchased and protected.

We joined a wider conservation effort involving the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, environmental philanthropists and other conservation organisations. Together with the generosity of Rainforest Rescue supporters, that effort gave Forest Lodge a very different future. Instead of being lost from the conservation landscape, its old-growth rainforest was protected.

Rainforest Rescue purchased Forest Lodge in August 2012 and a Conservation Covenant now protects its conservation values forever. The covenant is registered on the title, meaning that protection remains with the land into the future.

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Forest Lodge is a beautiful example of what can happen when an opportunity to protect rainforest appears and people come together to act.

We are deeply grateful to the Rainforest Rescue supporters who helped make the purchase and protection of this special place possible, and to the Tasmanian Land Conservancy for its support and assistance.

Because of you, 80.94 hectares of Tasmania’s ancient cool temperate rainforest remain protected. Forever.

Thank You