THE FIGHT FOR THE DAINTREE GOES ON!

Summary of anticipated impact on the Daintree area from the provision of grid power (as proposed in the current (Sept. 2000) Daintree Futures study):

THE DAINTREE - A Refuge For Ancient Plants:
The Daintree is a small area of coastal lowland rainforest (est. 20,000Ha), and is notable for being home to the highest diversity of plant families in Australia. The region has 95 families of plants, with over 1,000 species, and 500 of these species are trees representing 70 families. Of 19 known families of primitive angiosperms, 11 are found in the Daintree. In contrast, the forests of South America contain only nine families of primitive angiosperms. In the Daintree, there are more plant groups with primitive characteristics than in any other tropical forest in the world. Biologists regard the region as a living museum of plants originating in the Gondwana super continent. For this reason it was included in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in 1988.

THE COW BAY SUBDIVISION - The Hole In The Heart Of Daintree:
Australia's most unique and threatened plants are in the Daintree's coastal lowland rainforest. Of this wilderness, 60% is contained in a 1,000-block real estate subdivision. Of the 120 known rare and threatened plant species in the Daintree region, 85 are found on private land; some tree species are only represented by a few trees on freehold blocks. The Cow Bay subdivisional area is estimated at 3,300 Ha, comprising over 1/3 of the total remaining lowland ecosystems of high conservation value in the Daintree. Development of this subdivision alone will result in a township of 3,000, which would obliterate critical rainforest habitats and cause the extinction of many plants. Further, the impacts of human activity surrounding those blocks (trail-bikes, cats, dogs, weeds) will roughly double the area affected.

World Heritage Land Tenure In The Daintree: This map shows the area of the Daintree under threat. The subdivision (the fine rectangular blocks in this picture) and the other freehold lands are in white. Areas in green are lands once under private ownership which were bought back through the Daintree Rescue Program, not all of which contain rainforest (as they were part of a "package deal" with the developer, Quaid). Those in orange-yellow are World Heritage listed National Park and old Timber Reserves. This map does not give the extent and distribution of the forests.

One species, a member of the red cedar family, became extinct in 1999 due to a landowner clearing his plot of land. If solutions that will alter the current direction of land clearing are not agreed to and initiated the 85 known rare and threatened plant species now on private land will only exist on the extinct list.