When the founder of Rainforest 4 Foundation visited the Daintree just last week, he was astounded to stumble across yet another instance of the inappropriate clearing. This time, the property shares a boundary with the Daintree National Park, so the impacts are significant.

The property, located in the Forest Creek area of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest has had a driveway estimated at 1km in length cut into this rainforest. This clearing for which we can find no Development Application filed with Douglas Shire Council has destroyed a large number of trees. 

This property’s northern boundary abuts Daintree National Park and World Heritage Area and vegetation in this location is habitat for the endangered Southern Cassowary. The clearing has caused an unbelievable amount of erosion, turning the freshly-cleared driveway into a river of silt, which has flowed all the way down to the road causing a traffic hazard.

This silt – which is actually precious rainforest soil and nutrients will flow into pristine Daintree creeks, causing sedimentation and turbidity. Those creeks are located in the Great Barrier Reef catchment and scientists now know that this sedimentation interferes with filter-feeding by clams, reduces coral recruitment, and even smothers corals. Turbidity can reduce light penetration in creeks and on the reef for days, weeks, or even months. 

This is a freehold property and this clearing demonstrates why our program of Daintree Rainforest land buyback is so important. We’re working with Douglas Shire Council to ascertain exactly what has happened on this property. The number one way to ensure this inappropriate clearing is stopped once and for all is to buy back these freehold properties and add them to the Daintree National Park.

Please donate now and help us buyback land in the Daintree Rainforest and prevent more clearing.

We know that we urgently need to stop all clearing of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest – the oldest living rainforest on Earth. But we can’t do that without your help. We need to keep buying back land before more rainforest is destroyed.

Many people we talk to believe that the Daintree is already protected in a national park, but that’s not the case. In the 1980s, the Queensland Government approved a 1100-lot rural residential subdivision, and four decades on, we’re still seeing the detrimental impacts first-hand. Two-thirds of the lowland rainforest between the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation was excluded from being protected in the Daintree National Park and Wet Tropics World Heritage Area that was declared in 1988.

With your help, we have already purchased seven properties for conservation. We’re now in the process of handing back ownership of these properties to their original custodians – the Kuku Yalanji people, and we’re supporting them to have the properties protected in the Daintree National Park.

Right now we’re urgently seeking to secure a 8ha block to prevent similar clearing from happening. We need to raise $400,000 before the end of February and every dollar you donate is matched by a committed but anonymous donor. This property is right in the heart of the Daintree Lowland Rainforest and contains some of the most impressive vegetation we’ve seen. Please donate now and help us urgently prevent more clearing in the Daintree.

Please donate now and help us buyback land in the Daintree Rainforest and prevent more clearing.