The enormous success of HalfCut 2021 is helping to produce unprecedented outcomes for the protection of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest and today we announce the buyback of two more properties at Lot 213 Teak Road, Cow Bay and Lot 21 Camelot Close, Cape Tribulation.

In July and August, HalfCut and their HalfCut Heroes were shining a light on the fact that half of the world’s forests are gone. They raised more than $800,000 to support land purchase and protection in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest. 

These funds will now be put towards expanding our buyback work in the Daintree Rainforest with Lot 21 and Lot 213 now secured for purchase and other properties under contract.

Read more about Lot 213 Teak Road, Cow Bay here.

Read more about Lot 21 Camelot Close, Cape Tribulation here.

The Rainforest 4 Foundation, HalfCut, and the Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation are committed to working together in protecting the Daintree Lowland Rainforest and returning it to the ownership and management by the Traditional Owners, the Kuku Yalanji people. 

With the help of thousands of people, in Australia and around the world we've raised the funds needed to purchase 14 properties in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest in the last two years. 

Lot 21 Camelot Close and Lot 213 Teak Road are our most recent acquisitions. 

HalfCut founders Jessica and Jimmy

Jimmy and his partner Jess founded HalfCut in 2014. Jimmy said they said they were thrilled with the response to HalfCut 2021 and so proud of the individuals and businesses that backed the campaign to save the Daintree. 

“What these everyday Australians have done in terms of protecting ancient rainforest is significant,” Jimmy said.

“They’ve used their voices and their hair to build awareness and raise cash that we will now use to protect significant rainforest blocks in the Daintree.”

HalfCut 2021 was supported by Bank Australia, Enova Energy, Ben and Jerry’s, Plant Proof, MacPac, and over 550 individuals, all raising funds for Daintree land purchase and protection.  

“The first time I visited the Daintree I knew it was a special place,” Jimmy said. “It beggars’ belief that someone could buy one of these blocks and legally clear it to build a house.”

“Lot 213 and Lot 21 are critical habitat for animals like the Boyd’s Rainforest Dragon and Bennett’s Tree-Kangaroo and the Endangered Cassowary. We simply must do everything we can to protect them.”

Lot 213 Teak Road and Lot 21 Camelot Close in the Daintree Rainforest 

Thanks to HalfCut the rate at which Daintree Rainforest properties are being purchased for conservation can now increase. One of the reasons this needs to happen with urgency is that COVID-19 has led people to leave larger cities and towns and find a refuge in rural and remote Australia. This has resulted in an increase in clearing for houses in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest. 

“We urgently need to increase our buyback of land and directly compete with those that would develop the world's oldest rainforest” said Kelvin Davies, long-time rainforest campaigner and the Founder of the Rainforest 4 Foundation. 

“Thank you HalfCut and the HalfCut Heroes of 2021!” 

In 1988 the Daintree National Park was expanded and saw the establishment of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Many people think that means the whole of the Daintree is already protected, but that’s simply not the case.

Two-thirds of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest, the land between the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation was carved up for a rural residential subdivision in 1982 and excluded from World Heritage listing. That means that someone else could buy these lots and clear them for residential housing. 

Learn more at www.Rainforest4.org.

Thank you to HalfCut and all of the amazing fundraisers supporting HalfCut 2021