$15 million Daintree rainforest hub plans

The Cairns Post has reported that James Cook University has unveiled plans to establish a $15 million research station in the heart of the Daintree rainforest.

The university will lobby the Federal Government for funding to establish the rainforest research and education facility at Cape Tribulation.

The Daintree Rainforest Observatory, which is hoped to be opened by mid-2012, would form part of an expansion of JCU's Australian Canopy Crane site.

It would also act as the sister station to the university's Reef research centre on Orpheus Island, enabling the university to offer for the first time Reef and rainforest packages to international conference groups.

The Daintree facility would include accommodation for up to 40 people, laboratory and teaching space, a public interpretative centre covering environmental, social, indigenous and sustainability issues in the tropics, an elevated boardwalk through the rainforest, a conference venue for 100 people, and a trail network to give scientists greater access to field sites.

Australian Laureate winner and JCU researcher Dr William Laurance, who will help lead the push for the observatory, said it could become one of the premier rainforest research sites in the southern hemisphere.

"I was with the Smithsonian Institute for 15 years, and they've invested in some comparable infrastructure in Panama," Dr Laurance stated, adding âthey get over 1,000 visitors a year coming in to use that kind of site they've got there."

The observatory has been planned to operate on off-the-grid alternative energy, and act as a showcase and test-bed for sustainable remote area living in the tropics.

It would also include the development of experimental forestry areas, to give researchers better access to the rainforest to monitor the effects climate change may have on the ecosystem.

Dr Laurance continued "in these sites weâd be doing monitoring of the vegetation, tree communities, carbon storage.

"This is the kind of long-term work you can use to better understand global change phenomena like temperature change going up."

6th May 2010 - WILDERNESS SOCIETY SPLITS IN MANAGEMENT DISPUTE