CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 1999


Staff:
Hugh Spencer and Teresa Elizabeth (both Directors) are the present full-time staff, and a part time member, Laura Cope has assisted running the Station for about six months, and plans to return in December 1999. Brigitta Flick (who with Hugh Spencer, was a Founding Director) is now a resident in Cairns, and is working on a degree in Psychology at JCU Cairns, and will continue as Foundation Director and to do the Station's finances. The Station urgently needs a third full-time staff member, and it is possible that Laura will take this role. There were sixty volunteers, interns and students this year, but with a major difference - most stayed for longer than the standard two weeks. The lengths of stay ranged from ten days to four months).

This has been a fairly major implications on how the Station has been operated, most importantly in the evolution of mechanisms, whereby the volunteers had some real involvement in the running of the Station, instituting and running with their own ideas, developing others, and so on. Having the Staff quarters some distance way from the laboratory area has been a major help, as it allows volunteers and others to work or talk, etc., at hours that would have previously been inconvenient to the staff trying to rest or get away from the interruptions.

Power System:
Some of the Cooperative Management Agreement money was used to buy solar panels, which were mounted on a tracker donated by Mono Pumps Australia, in Townsville. They donated three tracker assemblies, worth about $2,000 each. Ten panels were mounted on the tracker, which gives us a total of 22 panels (1,125 watts) or, with the tracker, 9 KWH/day. The system still has "bugs", but these are being ironed out slowly. It has been largely reliable, however, the batteries are failing, which will be a very expensive future replacement, but with our mode of operation, the batteries are not heavily relied upon.

Air-Conditioned Laboratory:
This is now up and running, even though its efficiency is far from satisfactory. This is due to the evident impossibility of getting the refrigeration company, who designed the refrigeration system, to specify the heat exchanger that performs the dehumidification correctly. It is far too small. However, it keeps the humidity at about 50-60%, and all the air that enters the building is filtered with a high efficiency filter, which removes spores and bacteria. The interior of the laboratory is professionally fitted out, but is not equipped with running water, which is on the outside. It will allow electronics, microscopy and general laboratory operations that do not require excessive volumes of water, or the release of chemical fumes (a dry-lab). In the coming year, we will upgrade the heat exchanger, and use the existing one on a second storage/workshop unit. We should have adequate power supply for this.

Research:
Research has rather taken a back seat this year. Hugh Spencer has retrieved most of his equipment from the Electrical Engineering Department at JCU, and it now occupies the whole of the Lab storeroom. The development of the new lab itself was, in fact, a piece of applied appropriate technological engineering, and will be written up for the US Journal, Home Power.

This December, we are hoping to start on the flying-fox deterrent systems, now that appropriate facilities are available for electronic design and construction.

Moritz Nowack (Germany) was here as an intern for three months and carried out the preliminary studies on another cluster fig, Ficus septica. Late last year, Nicole Ostlaender carried out a similar study on Ficus congesta, as part of a continuing program of research into the biology of these figs. We hope the year 2000 is going to see these studies finalised and written up for publication. We have a student from the Queensland University of Technology, Johnathon Cowie, who is carrying out a survey of the attitudes of the residents of the Daintree region about their renewable power systems. This is the third such survey that we have run. However, despite attempts to get funding from the State Government, they are unwilling to support the survey ($10,000), unless they can completely control the disposition of the resultant data. So no support from that arena.

Visits:
We have had quite a number of visitors, both scientific and non-scientific - Dr. Ralph Manzanell (Switzerland), Dan Bean, Dr. James Cook, Carlos Vamonde (Imperial College London), Dr. Dan Henning (Thailand), Dr. David Peterson (Western Michigan University), Dr. Peter Cranston and his group (CSIRO Entomology), Dr. Axel Poulsen (Sabah), Simon Grove (JCU Cairns), Robert Schulhoff (Switzerland), Dr. Eugene Studier and his group (University of Michigan-Flint), David Werner (Health Rights (California/Mexico), Professor David Patterson, Zoology, (University of Sydney), and Hugh and Nan Nicholson, Terania Ck, (Australia).

Lawrence Academy of Groton, Massachusetts, which was the second visit by this group of 22, but the weather really played up, and we had one meter of rain during the week of their visit. They very generously donated a considerable amount of equipment to the Station.

Cyclone:
On February 15th, Cyclone Rhona hit, and we only had a two-hour warning. Luckily, it did no structural damage, but ripped out and smashed a substantial number of trees, including some of our important fig trees. It took us two days to chain saw our way out, largely due to the breadfruit trees planted along the way, now shattered across the road.

The cyclone was a very small one in area extent, as it had its eye on the Daintree River, which suffered no damage. However, the westerly winds from the cyclone were focused by the mountains, and caused major damage with wind speeds of over 100 mph along the ridgelines, which includes the Station. The canopy crane was mildly damaged, but the canopy beneath it was shredded.

We carried out an experiment following the cyclone, which involved cutting and poisoning vines in half of our rainforest area adjacent to the laboratories, to evaluate the effect of vines on canopy reconstitution. The results are not yet evaluated, but the areas with vines removed, are showing very healthy canopy regeneration compared to the other (control) forested areas.

Bat House:
We had hoped to commence the upgrading of the Bat House this year, but the realities of the Cyclone and getting the lab building finished diverted us from that project. Laura Cope and several other volunteers have upgraded the displays, which were becoming tawdry, and Kerry Stelling from Townsville repainted the entrance sign and painted a new, and much larger sign as well. Laura organised a new sign to hang from the Bat House building itself. However, it is proving difficult to get the attention of backpackers, and we will be re-organising the sign at the "take-away" end of the property next year to overcome this.

Hopefully next year will also see the extensions in place.

They are not particularly complex, and will result in a 50% increase in display area. Associated with that will be the erection of a new tracker and eight solar panels with associated batteries and components to provide a satisfactory solar power system for the building, and which will be part of a display of appropriate technology. The Bat House is under-resourced, the displays are not up to standard, and we are going to need financial assistance and/or donations of display material relevant to reef, rainforest, bats and alternative technology. We are hoping to acquire some of the Australian Museum displays once their Bat display is over.

The Bat House is presently closed on Mondays to allow Station staff (permanent and temporary), and also guests and visitors, to go for walks on Monday mornings, and to have free time on Monday afternoons.

Regeneration:
Cyclone Rhona destroyed a significant part of the regeneration area. Some of the younger trees were resurrected by pulling them up and staking them, but unfortunately it was not possible to obtain binder twine until too late for many trees (rope proved far too expensive an option), and many trees were missed. However, the clearance of the larger trees has allowed many smaller ones to flourish and, unfortunately, the guinea grass as well. But, we seem to be ahead this year, with another half planted, with assistance from the Daintree Cassowary Care group in the form of donated seedlings, and of course the footwork of many volunteers.

Major equipment:
Laura Cope donated a Toshiba Satellite laptop (IBM compatible) that is very fast, and it is being used for the web development and for Internet work in general. The Station Mac 520C remains the e-mail computer. With the purchase of two secondhand 520Cs earlier this year, we are, if anything, over-computerized!

Mono Australia donated three Suntron trackers, one of which has been installed.

We have purchased two "Sea-breathe" floating battery-powered air systems for shallow water research, particularly reef-related research ($1,100 each). These will allow students to do reef- related research, and will hopefully allow us to do conservation research work on eutrophication of the reef.

The husband of a visitor to the Station, Dr. Jim Fristrom), donated a considerable amount of small-scale laboratory equipment (ex-UC Berkeley) to the Station.

Envirofiesta:
We had a stall, organised by Laura and other volunteers, at Envirofiesta in Cairns in September, which is an environment fair run by Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC). This was a colourful and fun event, and we plan to participate next year.

Web Page:
Thanks to Sheryl Shackmann and Linda Ginenthal, especially Linda, of Seattle, Washington, who set-up a new web page format for us, however, sad to say, there has been so much going on, so trying to find the time to get it updated and online has been impossible. Hopefully, this will be done by Christmas.

Conservation:
Because of the activity on Station issues, and the overall lack of opportunities for useful activity, we have not been as active on the Conservation front as we might have been.

Major conservation issues, such as buyback land, has been the major focus, as well as applying pressure on the local Council to reduce the size of the road surface in the Noah Creek area.

Flying Foxes:
The flying fox cage was substantially extended late this year, and is now is 9-m square. However, this was a sad year for many of the animals. Five red flying foxes, three spectacled bats and one black flying fox have died. Many of the deaths were due to old age, some hastened by the incredibly wet first half of the year. We currently have three young born in captivity, 2 spectacled and one red flying foxes.

Building And Finishing
The Laboratory was finished and useable by August of this year, although the dehumidifier needs substantial improvement. The Toilet block was repainted and detailed with new steps. The first accommodation building was repainted and detailed. The verandah was sanded and oiled, but still requires an extension to the roof to prevent water from flooding the verandah.

All accommodation buildings now have fitted Aluminum fly screens.

The Bat cage was increased to 9-m square. Luckily, we were able to hire a friendly backhoe and driver, to move the old storage bins, which have been obstructing the lab and the extensions to the bat cage for years.

The room adjacent to the kitchen was upgraded to an office, which can now accommodate two workers.

The kitchen was upgraded by having a new double-sink unit fitted, along with new benches and shelving around the walls, leaving an open area, which can accommodate more than two people preparing food. (Cape Tribulation Cooking Camp)

A new ten panel solar tracker installed.

External Funding And Donations:
We received an anonymous donation of $20,000 at Christmas time, which really makes some things possible!

A Japanese Tourism Group has made a commitment to donate $1000 per year from now on. This group has an R and R farm in the upper Daintree, and is interested in using us as a source of know-how for regeneration projects, and with the possibility that various members will be interested in sponsoring particular projects.

The Myer Foundation had made a grant of $2,000 in response to our request for capital funding.

Other Grants And Donations:
In Gift Acc. 20/8/98 - MLC $150.00 - Daintree Task Force. In Gift Acc. 15/9/98 - FF Photos $129.00. In Gift Acc. 12/10/98 - C. Sloop $76.00. In Gift Acc. 12/10/98 - T. Cox $300.00. In Gift Acc. 4/11/98 - G. Schreiber $50.00. In Gift Acc. 22/12/98 - $400.00 Can., $370.90. In Gift Acc. 2/3/99 - DirkvanHelden $500.00 by phone 17/2/99 - Patricia Grant $24.00 by phone 17/2/99 - Patricia B.Barosa $40.00 by phone 17/2/99 - Bat World $40.00, D. Patterson $250.00, and Anonymous $20,000.

Total $24,929.90

Future Directions 2000-2001:
Purchase of 4WD vehicle because both of the Station's vehicles are dying of rust and old age. A secondhand freezer unit is needed to provide storage and perhaps workshop space. We are having problems with storage because of the necessity to provide low-humidity filtered air storage that is very evident. We lost over 40 beautiful unit insect storage boxes through the combined action of humidity and termites. It is the first year that we have had a significant termite attack. New lab proposals - A new wet lab would be a great advantage. Further upgrading of flying fox enclosure to better accommodate bats, and possibly a walk through cage adjacent to the Bat House. Cement flooring of the garage will permit vehicle maintenance and bio-diesel production. Upgrading of the old lab into an office that could accommodate three workers, repairing office equipment (Fax machine), upgrading of the cabins adjacent to the white cabins, organising on-going scientific, conservation and educational projects for volunteers to work on, extensions to the Bat House, including display upgrades, upgrading of the library, and continuing expansion of the regeneration area.

Research:
We have a potential post-doc student from Germany who wishes to use the lab to carry out HPLC analyses of nectars. This will also involve legal action to get compensation from a University who ditched an HPLC system that we lent them! We are also attempting to start some reef- related research, concentrating particularly on the issues of eutrophication.