Introduction 2002 started on a hopeful note, with the trigeminal neuralgia that had been plaguing Hugh for the past 3 years seemingly on the mend - off drugs, and no symptoms - but there was a "micro-twinge" for which Hugh foolishly sought medical advice. This resulted in a totally unnecessary operation on the tooth, which then went horribly wrong - catapulting him back in February to the condition of about 2 years ago, with a pretty terrible prognosis for recovery. And it got worse, necessitating the total removal of a perfectly serviceable upper canine tooth. Trigeminal neuralgia (web) is a singularly horrible neural complaint resulting in unbelievable facial pain - in fact it is called "suicide pain" for reasons that Hugh can vouch for. It can be triggered by all sorts of conditions - but basically anything that stimulates the pain nerve fibres of the same side of the face and the mouth. Eating can become a major horror show - with the victim being reduced to eating soups. Walking, running, talking, touching hair, can set off the pain - or it will just do it like clockwork whenever it feels like it. It is due to a "wiring/interpretation error" in the Trigeminal nucleus on the side of the face which contains the cell bodies and interconnections of the sensory neurons of the same side of the face. In TN a normally innocuous stimulus can set off a major response - as if all the pain fibres on that side of the face are firing at once, and then some! One's ability to function is restricted to the pain-free periods between bouts - and these can be very short indeed. Tegretol, an anti-epileptic drug, is effective, but at the dose required for cessation of the symptoms, one becomes zombie'd out. Panadol surprisingly works as well - but at high doses that's pretty awful too. Normal medical treatment consists of various "bulldozer" interventions - destruction of the trigeminal nucleus and worse. If an error occurs in these treatments - then the pain persists and is untreatable - except by suicide. Best approach is the minimalist approach - which is to destroy or inactivate the nerve fibres causing the problem, and reduce the stimulus that is triggering the trigeminal nucleus. This works if the nerve fibres are peripheral - not so good if they are deeper (tooth roots). But it can be done, either surgically (freezing the most peripheral nerves, for deep stimuli) or using capsaicin (the hot ingredient of chilis) for the superficial nerves.  I've been able to use the latter.  Presently against all expectations it is in remission again - and I am almost off medication - but some of the irritant nerves that I knocked out with capsaicin are re-growing, so as I type this I have a mouthful off the stuff - yeech!  A couple of treatments like this a couple of months apart and it should be finished.  Bulldozer treatments can't be re-visited if anything goes wrong, whereas minimalist ones can be repeated over and over again - and you can't get the death pain from a screwed up operation. So - progress at the Station, which has been considerable, has to be measured against Hugh's incapacitation, and is a tribute to the efforts of many volunteers who got things going. Buildings We had the great good luck to have Chris and Bill Russell from the UK who painstakingly laid the foundations for the new laboratory building late last year and helped erect the lego-block like structure that was the lab building (like the first one, sent pre-fab from Townsville to our specifications). This lab is 2x the size of the first one which is next to it. We had hoped to rotate the original lab so the doors etc faced  the new lab, but alas the crane couldn't cross Noah Creek bridge without collapsing it.  As luck would have it - Ingo Kühnast from Sweden arrived (Ingo is an ex senior member of the German Greens who got fed up with politics) - and took on the next most important job, putting on the roof - and as we were having more than usual rainfall, this was desperately important - as the flat roof of a cold room (for that is what the structure basically is) are very hard to seal - and even a light rainfall resulted in cataracts of water pouring in along the roof seals - how we managed to find enough buckets still baffles me. Big sheets of black polyethylene were used to cover it, but even they weren't quite up to the job - but were good training for construction site work - rolling and unrolling the sheet (10x6 meters) underneath the growing roof frame every time a shower threatened. Ingo did an amazing job - with only one minor, but exciting, slip. Even more amazing was how he convinced large and very heavy pieces of scavenged timber to behave themselves and make the rafters! At this time (Jan 02) we started on the final construction of the 4th accommodation building, with most of the work being done by Mitch (Col Mitchell), aCairns based builder who has been very accommodating to the Station in the past. This building is the same general design as the others, but with the future addition of a small composter toilet - it will become the "long-termer's" cabin. It was finished in March 02.   All the cabins were fitted with running water and electricity with buried piping courtesy of Stan Newman - a physicist turned organic farmer from Yeppoon, Stan and Johan Siverklev put in steps on the lab as well and the connecting walkway between the two lab buildings. With the arrival of the refrigeration unit for the new lab (which took a very considerable length of time to eventuate) and with equally considerable help from Johan, we were able to get the lab wired, and the air-to-air humidity exchanger installed and operating. At the same time the lab furniture was installed giving us an impressive work space (including dark room, and a air-con store room with a set of "Compactus"-like rolling shelf units). The lab shelving still isn't installed, but hopefully before this Xmas....... The Old lab has been largely emptied of microscopes and general biological materials, and this has been transferred to the new lab, which will become the Bio lab, and the old one becomes the Techno lab (for electronic based projects). We have had endless trouble with the old lab's refrigeration unit, which has pulled just about every trick in the book - culminating in being taken in to Cairns on the 16 Dec 02 to be rebuilt. It has cost us a fortune over its 3 year life, and hopefully this will be last significant problem that we will have with it. Coupled with the new lab was the new Bat Cage - to replace the mud city that the old one had become (and site of the old one is now occupied by the new laboratory). It was supposed to be totally snake proof - but alas that has not proven to be the case. It IS SNAKE PROOF now - thanks to Rupert Parker's (a second time volunteer) efforts in preventing bandicoots digging under the frame. The cage is however well-drained - how well-drained we will see, once we get something resembling wet weather! The Garage floor is still to be cemented (so we can start making bio-diesel) -and a new accom building for Hugh (out of the way of the maddening crowd) - has been commenced. Other improvements - the store room in the Hilton (where ALL the white-tailed rats hung out) has been completely re-invented, and is neat, tidy and thanks to lots of wire mesh, pretty well rat proof (not that several have not managed to chew through the wire!). Thanks to Erin Kochaniewicz from Olympia for the help in that. We now can store about 5x the volume of stuff and even FIND it!. The Kitchen has a new gas stove - the old one that Hugh and Teresa bought second hand about 4 years ago carked it in late Nov, and it has been replaced with a shiny new fan-forced unit. Very swish, and the oven even works!  I expect a major increment in meal quality - to keep the title of the "Cape Tribulation Cooking Camp" alive. The Bat House sports its new solar tracker on a tower - we now have more than enough power to run fan and lights all day, even in the greyest weather. Thanks to Mike Batchelor and others for the help with that one. We also have an incredibly detailed  photo-mosaic map of the Daintree, courtesy of the Wet Tropics Management Agency. I've been hankering after that for years - and the information contained in it is staggering.  We still have yet to set up the solar display, but in time...... Projects. Non-lethal Flying fox deterrent systems. The Foundation received $10,000 to design and construct 25 trial non-lethal replacements for electric "Fyre Fox" bat electrocution grids from the Queensland Department of the Environment. These were basically electric fence units modified to deliver non-lethal shocks immediately the bat contacted the aerial electric fence.  The units worked, and contained an electronic counter to count the number of impacts, as well as a warning light to indicate faults. As these were intended as a trial of effectiveness, we anticipated that as the proposer and developer of the units, we would be part of the assessment team - as it was unlikely that the units would be effective unless it was ;possible to "tune them up" in the field, and observe the conditions under which they were to operate. Fat chance. The Units were delivered to Dept of Primary Industries, who passed them on to an employee who knew nothing about electronics, and that was the last we heard of them - no amount of attempts to communicate were successful. As it happened the fruit season was small (too wet) and the trial failed.  So, it appears that the considerable effort involved has gone for naught - as the developer of the unit, we were not given the courtesy of involvement, and in the report, were in effect blamed for the poor outcome of the trial. As the commissioning of the report was the result of a knee jerk response ("gotta be seen to be doing something") by the Gov't, to a major flying fox kill dec 00.in Kennedy; there was no negotiation or discussion - they simply took our preliminary proposal and told us to make it. All in all, it was a waste of time and effort. Next time there has to be some appropriate level of on-going involvement with the project and its outcomes. The whole issue of non-lethal deterrence for flying foxes seems to have fallen into a big political black hole, despite the fact that they have been listed as Vulnerable. De-sulphator project. Another project that we have been trying to get Gov't assistance for, for the past 5 years. Suddenly with the State elections in Nov.00, this project was selected from the pork barrel.  Case of right things for the wrong reasons. After the elections the Dept of Minerals and Energy vanished, and it all went to Dept of Environment - as did the bureaucrats associated with "sustainable energy projects". Chaos reigned - and the project after having been announced, almost got killed as a result of Dept. fights. However, funding eventually appeared (nom $50,000) - but 6 mo later. Essentially the project was to investigate whether pulse de-sulphators were able to reduce battery degradation in the Daintree (which has become possibly the world's largest non- intentional renewable energy dependent community), where system failures are very common and are due to battery failure. Pulse de-sulphators have been touted as the answer to battery degradation. Making the batteries last longer is the key for increasing user satisfaction with renewable, and so lessen the calls for the provision of mains power, which would be disastrous for the area.  We were to construct and fit 50 de-sulphators and record the effects on batteries - using the battery banks as their own controls. This has been going now for almost a year (of an 18 month project- and we  (myself and my  colleague from Cow Bay, Paul Hollis) hope to have this fully written up by June (it will be another Foundation publication). So far the results on the de-sulphators is equivocal, but we have learnt an amazing amount about battery health and how to achieve it - so the outcome will be very useful. Counter-current humidity exchanger project. This is one that we truly thought was a winner - use passive counter-current exchange principles to allow dry out flowing room air to passively dry incoming moist outside air, and so save a packet of energy in air-conditioning. Great for CO2 lowering and all that. And it does work, but the realities are far more complex!  We (myself and Johan Siverklev) approached Queensland Sustainable Buildings for funding - and got accepted - provided it met the intellectual property requirements (i.e. could be patented). We obtained a preliminary patent - but not until the application for the final patent did we discover that the Patent process was really a case of "caveat emptor" - and we relied on the patent attorney and the patent office to carry out the searches. Of course they missed the fact that the year before the Australian patent office had issued a similar patent to a Sydney company! - I only discovered that by reading a brochure........ so "pop"  went that bubble. We were all bitterly frustrated - as both Johan and myself had put lots of energy into the project. However - Johan has gone back to Sweden to see if he can make something of it - and I have to admit, had we been funded, it would have been a case of the exchanger-project-tail wagging the research-station-dog - as there would not have been sufficient funding to really prosecute the project, and everything else would have suffered. (written with 20:20 hindsight).  However, we have two exchangers on the labs, and are starting to work out strategies for really making them effective. (So long as we can keep the white tailed rats out of them - but that is another story). Radar deterrence project.  This one also has been bubbling along Slooooowly. Current FF and fruit grower politics seems to dictate that NO funding will go to deterrence systems. Weird.  However, we have a prototype system that we demonstrated at the Bat Conference in Cairns, and we have invested in a you-beaut radar dish from UK - military spec. beautiful device, but there is no money to seriously proceed with the project. Fuad Khan, who was here in December, wrote the initial software, and that was added to by Stan Newman and Fuad has taken it upon himself to finish it off. We are hoping that we'll have something photograph-able for a US  film group in Jan. It will happen - but slowly. NEW!! GPS logger collar project - this is the exciting one - the development of a GPS-logger collar for flying foxes, which can be remotely downloaded using a radio link (so we don't have to catch the animal to do it). With capability of 100,000 locations and times, accurate to 10 meters, we have the potential to really get to know what these animals are doing out there.  We hope to have collaboration with the Uni of Auckland (who want to use it for birds) and with Germany (my colleague Dr Karen von Huenerbein, who first devised the concept for pigeons), and maybe with AQIS (Australia's quarantine service, who want to look at animals moving between PNG and Australia's north).  Lots of applications to other animals. Fundraising.  We have had the luck to have an American woman, Julie Tessler, from New York turn up as a volunteer and become enraptured with the place. Prior to coming here she had worked as a corporate "head-hunter" and was well familiar with the corporate world. On her return she has set up a permanent fund raising agency for the Foundation, with the express aim of raising funds for Daintree buyback. For this to be successful we need a "conduit" in the States who can give tax-deductibility to the donors. We have one such conduit for small donations, the Sierra Club Foundation, but they are unwilling to act for  very large sums, such as those we are seeking for land buy-back. Currently Julie is seeking out such organisations, and we think that we have found one. Fundraising for land buy-back is of extreme importance, as some very large development players are moving into the area, and it could be all over for the Daintree in 3 years if we don't start the process now. Bat House. The Bat House slowly gets upgraded little by little, with all sorts of ideas contributed by volunteers. Most of the volunteers spend greater or lesser amounts of time in the Bat House, and our US student group, International Student Travel, found that operating the Bat House was a marvellous learning experience for the students. A new roadside sign and some internal signs were created by Diana Guyton (IST student) and Julie Tessler. The Bat House contributes about 1/3rd of our operating revenue.  Tour operators are starting to re-appear, and with the change of ownership of PK's we are getting more backpackers (as we are now on their map). Research capabilities. The Station is becoming more and more like a University based Station in terms of equipment - largely due to Hugh's forays into the auction world (and as a result of Donations and the final (and very unsatisfactory) settlement of our legal action against Melbourne University So - we now have capabilities to do HPLC, gel electrophoresis and column gel chromatography, plus a very good collection of chemicals and preparative materials. This in addition to microscopy, field biology, pollination biology, shallow water diving and so on.  We have even done sensory neurophysiology on ant mouth sensilla, and have what is probably the only wooden micro-electrode puller in the world - and it produces very nice intracellular electrodes too! The last foray (Hugh's first attendance at an auction in Sydney - which was a whole story in itself) - was saved from disaster by the timely intervention of Chris Murray of AET who very kindly had everything (equipment, chemicals etc) packed and shipped here as a donation to the Foundation - without this - I probably would have ended up in the well-known Gladesville Institution, and nothing would have arrived here. Regeneration The line of trees creeps closer and closer to the rear of the property. We almost lost one area of plantings due to a rather  sudden change in rainfall mid year 2001, to 1/5th the fall of the preceding years, but we were able to do interplanting during the brief and wet winter this year, and have maintained these trees by dint of hand watering almost every week (to the delight of the mosquitoes). This has been an exceptionally dry year, and if it rains, we have another 1/2 Ha of ground prepared thanks to Damien Gartside and Sabine Geneste. We have yet to write up our regeneration technique - as it is rather different from what is conventionally used and works very well. Looking at the aerial photo of the Station in 1991 (a few scattered trees) and today (over 75% forested)- the difference is amazing - and thanks to the many volunteers that made it possible. Community weed control As part of our commitment to the area we have been undertaking local weed eradication activities. These started in Jan 02 when we tackled a serious infestation of "Singapore Daisy" (Wiegelia) on South Cape trib beach - Sarah Hicks (USA) and a group of volunteers helped reduce this incredibly invasive weed (but with very pretty yellow flowers!) which had formed a dense green mat on the foreshore, choking out the native littoral rainforest species (those restricted to the 50 meters or so between the high tide mark and the forests behind). Coconuts were also tackled - these are incredibly invasive, fast growing, and have been in the area for about 20 years. unfortunately Hugh's neuralgia was activated rather early on in this project and it came to a grinding halt until November 02, when it was sufficiently on the mend to allow hard physical work in the morning. Since then we have hardly stopped, clearing purple top (Stachytarfetta), Syngonium, and breadfruit from Emmagen (with Oya Akin, Cheryl Baldwin, Matthias Kuhn and Damien Gartside) - we also have tackled lantana and coconuts at Emmagen beach. We also finished S Cape Trib Beach. We also started on roadside weed control but that too stopped, and restarts next year. Hugh's neuralgia really was foully timed - as we have had probably the best weather for weed control this year that we could possible want, and couldn't take advantage of it! Hugh and Nell Routtier have become National Parks volunteers, to allow us to operate in Parks land, and Hugh will be taking the poisons course, to officially permit herbicide spraying in Parks and Council land. Website After languishing for several years with promises of "yes, I'll get on to it as soon as I can" the web site is being upgraded - first by   Toni .......in the USA, and then by Nell Routtier, who has the job of finishing the unfinishable. There is an enormous amount of material to catch up on - so it still will take time. Bats This has NOT been a good year for the captive bats we have lost 4 to snakes, in some of the most bizarre circumstances that can be imagined. First was Scrumpy, a very personable little black flying fox, son of the redoubtable Annie, who was consumed in what was supposed to be a snake proof room my office, the snake having secreted itself to wait for the Station cat, Clea.  Next was Amber,  who was consumed by a python  that had managed to get through an unnoticed 1 gap in the new cage roof. Then  3 weeks ago it was Annie by a python that got in through a bandicoot burrow under the cage. As an email to some friends says&. We just have had a horror weekend - our grand old dame (black) Annie - at 17 yrs old, was eaten by a python that got into the cage via a bandicoot digging that we didn't see. At least she had lived to a grand old age - and we were hoping for more bubs from her - as she produced a baby each year like clockwork. THEN - a python got into our "impregnable" baby cage on the veranda last night and ate Becky - Annie's last baby - (Annie couldn't produce milk, so we had to hand-rear Becky) - it got in through what appeared to be a Melomy's nibble on the top of the shade cloth - and the snake - which was quite large, pushed itself through the 1 inch hole. To compound the horror - we'd just returned from releasing the python with Annie inside, checked the bubs - and they were all OK, and I went to another building to work - 1 hour later - large python with bulge in cage and two very frightened little specs. It took half a bottle of whisky and 2 hours for the 3 of us at the Station to calm the bats and ourselves down. This area is really infested with amethystine pythons - especially now when the weather gets humid - you can watch various local residents that have been with us for many months disappear one by one - currently it's the scrub turkeys - down to one. Guaranteed to be a python. Arrrrgh!  So we hope that Edgar and Spencer (and I had nothing to do with the name!) survive  until release we've closed every hole that we can find. Student Groups For two weeks (4-19 June) we hosted  a International Student Travel group 12 students and Mark Liles, the group leader.  It was very successful even if HS was struck dumb for most of the time with the dread neuralgia.  This was a dress rehearsal for what we hope to be a regular hosting each year with 3 such groups in mid 2003 (just so long as we get breathing space between them!).  Everyone appeared to enjoy the experience, loved the bats, and get some quite valuable research experience including a continuation of the cyclone regeneration project. We have also had a group of 19 from James Cook University Cairns campus for  3 days. Researchers Not much research activity by visitors we have had two students from Leipzig, Connie Becker and Martin Kroker who were using some of the facilities to look at black palm reproduction,  Nico Bluethgen and Marsha Bischoff  worked on ant nectar composition preferences.  Johan Siverklev was involved in the analysis of performance  of the air-to-air humidity exchanger. Attracting researchers is surprisingly difficult there appears to be a considerable ignorance of the fact that Australia has interesting lowland rainforests which are safe and accessible. Even the Canopy Crane facility is having trouble attracting interest. I really dont know what the answer is publishing more research findings from the Station would help but considering that we are a research Station (that is we provide the facilities for researchers)  - which takes just about all our efforts, we cant really be expected to be doing the research as well although we are not unsuccessful there either!  Any ideas?? Donations Our ever generous Cousin Laura  (Laura Cope from UK)  donated $6,000, and we have received  $ 2,000 from Peter Hannam and Cao Yin .  A special  purpose donation  of  $A25,000 was received from the Goldman Foundation to fund the special study on the economic value of the Daintree natural resources to the regional economy.  Chris Murray of AET made a significant donation-in-kind with the packing and shipping of the equipment from Sydney. Solar system The Station solar system  continues to operate well and we are about to put in the 3rd tracker with initially 4 panels (hopefully before Christmas), giving us a total of 1.8 Kw peak solar output.  With 2 dehumidified labs and a refrigerator and freezer,  to say nothing of operating lab equipment and computers, we are starting to  use lots of power, so we need the expanded generating capacity. Volunteers   we've had 57 volunteers and interns during the past year and what really is interesting is that has included more long-stayers (greater than 3 weeks) and a number (4) of re-visits which is very pleasing. Awards Hugh received the Unsung Hero of Australian Science 2002 award  - and was whisked (almost literally) to Canberra  to receive it. The award, given annually by the Australian Science Communicators, recognises the work of a scientist or science communicator whose outstanding achievements have largely been unrecognised and unrewarded by their peers. As more than a worthy recipient of the award, Dr Spencer has for the last 14 years created his own tropical research station in the Cape Tribulation rainforest, the Cape TribulationTropical Research Station.   Studies and reports A study entitled Tourism & Recreational Values of the Daintree and Fraser Island was commissioned by the Foundation  from a Cairns based economic consultancy, Kleinhardt-FGI in late 2001, and it was completed in March 2002.  It found that the natural environment of the Daintree brought in an estimated  $A400 million gross to the regional economy, and that Fraser island was worth about $A280 million.  Unfortunately the  public response to the study was deafening silence (but many copies of the web version were down loaded).  Unfortunately Hugh was quite ill when the document was released and was not in a position to publicise it, and John was busy running his tours so this very important and ground breaking document fell between the cracks.  Even an attempt to make copies of the document available at the recent Ecotourism conference in  Cairns (where the Foundation had a poster presentation)  resulted in 29 copies being filched by delegates despite the fact that they contained an invoice and  were offered on an honour basis a loss to the Foundation of almost $750.00.  I hope this is not a general indication of the tourism industry mentality, but I fear it is. A German intern Sabine Hartig  initiated a study on the attitudes of tour-operators early in 2002, but unfortunately that study was not completed hopefully it will be finished early in 2003. Virtually all studies tend to be of the tourists but the attitudes of the tour operators has a major impact on visitor experience. Other developments We have been joined by Nell Routtier from Gatton, who has just completed a degree in Environmental management. Nell is definitely a batty lady, who is also responsible for getting the web site up and running and regular (as they say).  She  anticipates being here for a while so will become an important member of the Station and will take some of the load of my shoulders. Welcome Nell!