Over 60 members of the community were present at the  unveiling of a sign to celebrate the protection of a crucial lot in an important habitat corridor that connects two World Heritage Areas in the heart Mission Beach.

A buy back of Lot 66 was made possible by decades of community commitment and partnerships focused on saving the cassowary and their special environment at the popular seaside tourist destination. 

See Boat Bay campaign blog

On  Friday (15 Nov) Mission Beach Cassowaries (MBC ) attended part of a Cassowary road crossing trials field trip to discuss potential solutions to reduce cassowary deaths at locations where regular road deaths have been documented.

Present were representatives of CCRC, JCU, WTMA, Terrain and MBC.

"Nature protection in Australia: The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement  (TPPA) is a rip in the fabric all the way from global to local".  (Margaret Moorhouse ASH)

"The Abbott Coalition is flirting with a trade agreement that would allow companies, acting increasingly in secret, to sue Australia if they don’t like its regulations.

"Labor rejected it outright.  Even the  Howard
government issued America with a rare “no” over the  legislation, declaring it contrary to national interests". 

Hello from Coquette Point,

On Thursday the Cassowary Coast Regional Council, CCRC, approved the reconfiguration of the Metricon marina development at 65 Coquette Point Road. This 89.26ha marina development abuts Ninds Creek, on the east and fronts the Johnstone River to the north. It is part of the old Ninds Creek Wetlands and as such the soils are acid sulphate. The site was cleared 100 years ago for agricultural and cattle farming purposes.

Dr's Steve and Miriam Goosem were guest speakers at a recent C4 general meeting.  Steve presented a fascinating power point presentation about cassowaries that took us as far back as the 1670's with a Cassowary painting by Francis Barlow in the Entrance Hall at Clandon Park, Surrey. (photo left)

Steve, who is the principle scientist at Wet Tropics Management Authority, kindly sent me the presentation (with his notes) to share with you. Here is Steve's power point presentation

Dr Miriam Goosem who is the Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science (TESS)at JCU, introduced the JCU Traffic management research report of which she is co-author.

As we all know, the environment of the Cassowary Coast is very special but it is also very fragile. It is a cyclone adapted environment, but development, tourism and two severe cyclones in only 5 years have taken their toll and participating in the plant outs has shown me how fragile such an environment is.

A healthy foreshore vegetation is key to stable sand dunes, the most effective barrier against erosion.

Congratulations to all who have been involved in the many plant outs along the foreshores of our beaches.  It is an acknowledgement of how intrinsic the value of the natural environment is to our community, lifestyle and well being at Mission Beach.

Hundreds of volunteers have spent countless hours over many months planting thousands of native trees and shrubs to help repair the damage to our dunal system as a result of cyclone Yasi. 

The Cassowary Coast community as a whole deserves  acknowledgement for the exceptional effort that is being made. 

Hello from sunny Coquette Point,

The week opened with ‘dial up weather’ which has remained; days reaching 23/24 and nights around 14/15; bright blue sunny skies with hardly a cloud to be seen.

Great excitement on Wednesday with the transit of Venus across the sun. Laurie and Anne visited from Cardwell and Ruth joined us for a ‘Venus’ party. We had great views of the transit through a modern welding helmet.