Author: Bronwyn Robertson

Human-induced wildlife deaths can have a significant impact on a range of fauna species, including birds, reptiles and mammals.  Increasing awareness of wildlife and the ways individuals can help minimise their impacts on them can help reduce wildlife injuries or deaths.

• Updating road-side signage – using vibrant images of local wildlife with short, catchy phrases could contribute to minimising wildlife deaths on roads.  These types of signs would be more appropriate for the Daintree area, the varied images could be better at grabbing attention and the signs can become tourist attractions in their own right.
• Investigate attachments to cars for reducing road kills – new cars are very quiet and often wildlife don’t hear them coming.  The LED lights on new cars also don’t pick up eye shine from reptiles, making it harder to avoid hitting them. Can devices like Shoo Roo (which attach to cars and emit noise to chase wildlife away from road sides) work well on a range of  animals, including mammals, reptiles and birds?
• Collecting more detailed information from the Daintree region on causes of wildlife deaths and conducting research into how to best mitigate them.

With the management of Blue Hole now returned to the local Traditional Owners, there is a good opportunity to protect the significant cultural values of the area. Access to the site needs to be managed to further protect this site.

• Negotiate an agreement between state government and Traditional Owners over the access road to Blue Hole, to strengthen the protection of the significant cultural site.

Council local laws often address a range of natural resource management issues, including management of domestic dogs, feral animal and weed control and illegal dwellings.  Closer partnerships between the community and local government to take action on these issues can have a significant impact on local environmental management.

• Ongoing pig trapping progam, supported by Council and other partners. In the Daintree rainforest environment, it is not always easy to shoot pigs, so trapping can be an effective way to control numbers.  Ongoing and consistent control measures are required to have any impact on the number of pigs and the damage they cause.
• Managing unrestrained dogs – there are council local laws which address wandering domestic dogs, but these need to be better enforced to minimise the impact dogs have on wildlife.
• Partnerships between landholders, council and others to conduct waterway management and restoration activities, including on private land.  Examples could include joint funding initiatives or onground labour for activities like weed control in waterways.

Sharing and coming together to develop a collective and aligned vision can result in a more cohesive approach to identifying issues and taking action. A collaborative approach enables community driven responses to emerging issues and can build landscape and social resilience.

Tourists come to the Daintree to experience the spectacular natural assets. There are many skilled and knowledgeable tourism operators in the area who are able to enhance tourists’ experience with their knowledge of the natural and cultural landscapes of the Daintree. Providing ongoing professional development opportunities for tourist operators, including support staff (eg. bus drivers transporting tourists from the airport), can help maintain those consistently high standards.

• Advocate and encourage participation in professional development programs like Savannah Guides for all tourism staff.
• Hold presentations for tourism operators from knowledgeable people on a range of relevant topics.
• Provide a regular newsletter or similar with accurate and interesting information on the natural environment (eg. similar to Tropical Topics) for the greater tourism industry and hotel front line staff.

Local Traditional Owners hold many thousands of years of traditional ecological knowledge in their stories and culture and their contribution to natural resource management can be significant.  Options for meaningful employment, particularly in their traditional country, provides an opportunity for Traditional Owners to stay on country and contribute their significant knowledge and skills to its management.

• Continue the negotiation and transition processes already underway between state government and Traditional Owners to transfer management of state land to local Traditional Owners.
• Funding to employ local Indigenous people in revegetation and other natural resource management activities.

Weeds are a major issue in the Daintree, impacting on the health and resilience of natural landscapes and agricultural systems.  Coordinated weed control, between state and local government and private landholders, will provide the most effective approach.

• Continue supporting the weed control efforts of local residents and non-government organisations – there are some good examples of positive impacts on weed control from this approach.
• Conduct education about appropriate garden plants for this area, to avoid them escaping and becoming potential weeds.

A number of cassowaries are killed from vehicle strike each year in the Wet Tropics.  However, the combination of factors which contribute to these deaths (vehicle speed, visibility, cassowary behaviour near roads, driver skill and awareness, roadside vegetation) are not well understood.  Better data on cassowary deaths on roads, as well as ‘near misses’, will allow more effective and targeted strategies to be implemented.

• Investigate ‘near misses’ involving cassowaries on roads to build up a better picture of the factors contributing to whether or not a cassowary is hit or injured by motor vehicles (eg. social research, confidential surveys).
• Compare cassowary fatality data from vehicle strike at different locations in the Wet Tropics (eg. Mission Beach, Kuranda, Daintree) to determine factors contributing to cassowary deaths.
• Provide information to tourists at car hire places, including driving conditions in the Daintree, safe driving tips, ensuring they look out for cassowaries and other wildlife on or near roads, taking extra care around parked vehicles or where there is limited visibility.

Littoral rainforest and coastal vine thickets are listed as critically endangered. The vegetation community is important for its biodiversity values and the buffering and protection it provides to coastal areas. It is at risk from a number of ongoing threats, including weed incursion, clearing, disturbance and inappropriate fire regimes. Active management and protection will help maintain existing patches and the important ecosystem functions they provide.

• Promote a community education program about the importance of this ecological community.
• Conduct active weed control in remnants.
• Ensure existing provisions in legislation are utilised to prevent additional disturbance or clearing, including tracks for beach access or to improve views eg. through local government planning for works that may impact on littoral rainforest.
• Clearly identify existing littoral rainforest remnants on private and public land, so activities can be undertaken to reduce threats and improve their health.

Forest fragmentation, particularly in rainforest habitats like the Daintree, can have a significant impact on available wildlife habitat and movement of rainforest-specialist wildlife species. Revegetation can help connect those fragments and, once plantings reach canopy closure, they can provide long-term management of weeds through shading.

• Revegetating vacant or crown land – this fills gaps in the rainforest, can help raise awareness when it’s done in highly visible locations and can help manage weeds.