Protection through partnership Protection through Partnership has been the World Heritage mantra since 1988. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located. A federally imposed international [...]
Living with Cassowaries - Part 2 Big Bertha has become accustomed to public admiration. She was first described as The Grand Dame of the Daintree, in the Port Douglas Mossman Gazette and her image was distributed to readers across Tropical North Queensland. Standing tall, with her head in line with her massive feet, [...]
The art of camouflage Daintree Rainforest showcases the art of camouflage and is renowned as the World’s longest surviving rainforest. This claim is based on the number of families of primitive flowering plants called Angiosperms that remain today. However, the enormity of this claim is dwarfed by the intricacy and variety of [...]
THORNTON PEAK LANDSLIDE IN THE HEART OF REFUGIA 1 JULY 2018 This Thornton Peak Landslide followed heavy, unseasonal rainfall after a tumultuous 137-mm fell in a relatively short period overnight, precipitating the slumping of a significant portion of the oldest rainforest in the world. After a dry June, an exceptional downpour of [...]
The complexity of managing multi-tenured lands is shown when a valuable Mahogany traverses Cooper Creek across two adjacent properties, one within and the other outside the boundaries of Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Section 56 of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Protection & Management Act 1993, prohibits the destruction of a forest product, but prior [...]
Ribbonwood Well-known to the timber community, 'Ribbonwood' is an attractively grained timber that was extremely restricted in its distribution. The primitive angiosperm Idiospermum australiense, a.k.a. 'The Green Dinosaur', is an ever-reliable piece of evidence of rainforest continuity over a period spanning more than 170-million years. It helps to explain why the Daintree Rainforest, on the eastern [...]
Until recently, sightings of this rarely-seen Scorpion-tailed Spider (Arachnura melanura) could have been counted on one hand, then approximately fifty of them were found on one tree in our tropical fruit orchard. A star-apple fruit tree (Chrysophyllum cainito), with an abundant growth of epiphytes, was loaded, but given the amazing mimicry of a dead leaf, it is possible that in the [...]
After more than twenty-years of searching Daintree Rainforest for all manner of cryptic life forms, we have at last photographic evidence of this rare Red Boobook (Ninox boobook lurida). The Southern Boobook (Ninox boobook) is also known as Mopoke, Morepork, Spotted Owl or Marbled Owl. This Red Boobook is a smaller bird and a subspecies that is darker in [...]
At last, warmer weather and rain has enlivened the Daintree Rainforest, ending a long, cold winter. With below average rainfall, the rich and vibrant presence of fungi has been lessened, but today the Yellow Many-headed Slime Mould (Physarum polycephalum) appeared on a log in a shady section of the rainforest. Not unlike bureaucracies, the slime [...]
This is Oberonia titania. Oberonia orchids are fairy orchids, small and petite. Species titania is the King of the fairy orchids. Thought extinct in about 1960, we are pleased to confirm that it is alive and continuing to exhibit its delicate beauty in the Daintree Rainforest. We first discovered this minute fairy orchid about a [...]
