Camera Traps – December 2024

Crinkle-cut tragically emerged from an almost full incubation period without any chicks, almost certainly losing the clutch to feral-pig predation.

Scratch has also lost all his chicks and is currently quarrelling with Crinkle-cut for Delilah’s affection.

Taiga, Alex & Ritchie (~6-months-old)

Taiga close-up with Alex or Ritchie doing battle with an upstanding liana

Manu & Baloo

Delilah & Scaramanga …

Three dingoes heading for the den …

This letter-to-the editor of Newsport infers that the DRM … would encourage suburban development of the coastal part of the World Heritage Daintree Rainforest, described by David Attenborough as “the most extraordinary place on Earth”.

Contrary to the letter’s assertion, that investment of millions buying back these blocks of land to save the Daintree coast from becoming suburbia, the most recent census revealed there were 546-dwellings only, representing an average settlement density of 14.35-ha/dwelling.  The letter contends, however, that the DRM threatens to reverse this and continuing action is needed to adequately conserve the region.

What the letter describes as being touted from the beginning as a renewable energy world first, outrageously claims … what was unsaid was that it was a means to provide 240-volt grid power under the pretence it would save on diesel-generated supply.  To set the record straight, the DRM web-page explicitly states:

The Daintree Renewable Microgrid (DRM) will aim to displace over 4 million litres of diesel currently being consumed annually for power resources for both residents and businesses in the Daintree – creating an ongoing positive environmental impact to the Daintree Rainforest, its waterways and the surrounding Great Barrier Reef.

Comparing storage efficiencies between hydrogen and ever-improving battery technology (less than 40 per cent versus 95 per cent efficiency), fails to distinguish that the former is an emission-free solar-generated renewable source of potential chemical energy, whereas the latter is a storage facility for potential chemical energy.

It also inaccurately and misleadingly attributes the drive to develop the DRM to a handful of tourism businesses who had refused to invest in solar, or batteries, because people like Warren Entsch promised them reticulated 240-volt power, paid for of course, by taxpayers and phantom investors – who were told that their investment would be saving the Daintree.  In truth, the drive came from a legitimate community choking under the fumes and prohibitive expense of an uncharitably imposed system, which is arguably world’s-worst-practice.

The trajectory of the letter catapults from conservation to a development push that included grid power, a bridge over the Daintree River and development of a coastal main road to Cooktown, all in the world’s oldest rainforest and one of the “rarest and most irreplaceable” ecosystems on the planet and centrepiece of the shire’s ecotourism industry.  Invoking Sir David Attenborough adds respectability to the World Heritage meeting place of rainforest and reef, but I doubt the world’s most highly-respected documentary-maker would be happy about hundreds of engine-generators polluting his most remarkable place in the world!

Surely, the oldest, rarest and most irreplaceable rainforest on the planet should also enjoy world’s best-protection?  With the vast majority of the area World-Heritage-listed since 1988 and what little extends beyond World Heritage-boundaries being federally declared as Endangered Ecosystem Community on 26th November 2021, the entirety of the area is now well-and-truly protected under federal legislation as a Matter of National Environmental Significance.

That is not to say that this most wondrous environmental asset enjoys the epitome of managerial excellence.  Within the vacancy created 127-years-ago, removing human custodial excellence, an estimated 30,000-feral-pigs are destroying the rainforest, whilst half-a-million visitors per-year are woefully deprived of the ecotourism excellence that would otherwise sustain the environment’s all-important conservation economy.

Even the custodial community is denied the most basic tools and resources for protecting this great global treasure and in pursuit of its duty of care, keeping food refrigerated for safe human consumption in an environment rich with microbial challenges, the fundamental necessity of electricity has been burdened these past 24-years with regulatory excision from the State’s Electricity Distribution Authority and predominant reliance upon engine-generators on a per-property basis.

Working tirelessly behind the scenes since 1998, the Federal Member for Leichhardt, the Hon. Warren Entsch MP skilfully pursued an energy solution through Volt Advisory Group’s meticulously designed and thoroughly assessed and approved DRM, which is emission-free and 100% renewable; something that Australia, Queensland and the host-community could proudly showcase to the world, precisely where the world expects the very best, from the very best & for the for the very best.

Antagonists reeking of desperation, curse that the replacement of engine-generators with a world-class renewable technology will somehow cause all the enshrined legislative protections of World Heritage, Endangered Ecosystem Community-listing, National Heritage, Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and award-winning Planning Schemes, to collectively collapse, driving the urban-sprawl that characterises capital cities to unstoppably inundate the rugged topography of the Daintree Rainforest.  What utter nonsense!

Daintree Rainforest Foundation Ltd has been registered by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and successfully entered onto the Register of Environmental Organisations. Donations made to the Daintree Rainforest Fund support Daintree Rainforest community custodianship and are eligible for a tax deduction under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.