Dr Aila Keto (Conservation Advocacy)

This gentle woman with a soft voice and formidable intellect fought long and hard for the protection of forests she has loved since childhood. Aila Keto was raised on a cane farm nearEl Arish and spent her childhood exploring the nearby rainforest. In 1982 she and her husband, Keith Scott, founded the Rainforest Conservation Society, working to raise the profile of North Queensland’s tropical rainforests and build support for their protection. Their extensive report to the Australian Heritage Commission on the significance of our rainforests was rewarded with international acclaim and the Commission’s recommendation that the area be nominated for World Heritage listing. After the listing in 1988, Aila served as a valued member of the Wet Tropics Board for seven years. She was named Queenslander of the Year for 2000.

Community for Coastal and Cassowary Conservation (Community Conservation)

The Community for Cassowary and Coastal Conservation began in the late 1980s, tackling conservation issues around Mission Beach, in an area with high levels of both development and environmental sensitivity. More than 15,000 visitors come to C4’s Mission Beach headquarters every year to learn about cassowaries and the rainforest. Hundreds of people have joined over the past nine years. Educators help at the visitor centre and present talks to schools; gardeners collect cassowary droppings and seeds, run the nursery and organise plantings; wildlife carers rescue and rehabilitate injured and orphaned wildlife; others keep an eye on development issues in the region, attending local council meetings, preparing submissions and lobbying politicians. This award recognises not just C4’s current members, but also all those who have contributed energy, ideas and enthusiasm over the years.

Virginia McGrath (Unsung Hero)

Virginia McGrath is one of the colourful characters of conservation, known affectionately in Ingham as “the snake lady”. When residents find an unwanted reptile in their house or garden, they call Virginia. As a wildlife carer she has spent countless sleepless nights caring for injured animals and orphaned babies — including the rare mahogany glider. She is devoted to educating the public about environmental issues. Thanks to Virginia, local farmers now appreciate that the carpet pythons living in their cane paddocks play an important role in keeping the rat population under control. Virginia has also been instrumental in raising public awareness about cassowaries, getting the message across to locals and tourists not to feed the birds and to slow down when passing through cassowary habitat.
 

Sue Fairley (Wet Tropics Neighbour)

In the early 1980s,the Fairley and Fitzsimmons families fulfilled their life dream: they bought a run-down dairy farm at the very top of the South Johnstone catchment area. They worked hard to balance farm production with nature conservation, maintaining the remnant native vegetation — home to spotted tailed quolls, possums and tree kangaroos. With the help of local tree planting teams and neighbour Janeene Wallwork they planted numerous trees. As if life on a dairy farm and raising kids wouldn’t keep her busy enough, Sue Fairley threw herself into the planning and construction of the Koombooloomba Visitor Centre, working hard to build a more positive relationship between the community and the Wet Tropics Management Authority. The Fairleys and the Fitzsimmons love the beauty of their property and are the best neighbours the World Heritage Area could hope for.
 

Chris Rossi (Rural Landholder)

Chris Rossi comes from one of the oldest farming families in the Russell-Mulgrave valley, harvesting cane where his grandfather wielded a cane knife 50 years before him. Chris joined the local Landcare group when it started in the early 1990s, and has participated in more community planting days than he probably cares to remember. He has also planted rainforest trees in the corners of cane paddocks and along kilometres of creeks and rivers with the help of his brothers and the rest of his family. The results speak for themselves: research shows his plantings along creeks and cane drains have reduced rat numbers and improved harvest yields. The trees also help to stop erosion and improve the river’s health. As Chair of the Russell-Mulgrave Landcare group, Chris continues to lead the way towards a better future for the World Heritage Area’s neighbouring farmlands.
 

Bill Cooper (Arts)

Bill Cooper is one of Australia’s most acclaimed wildlife artists, described by David Attenborough as “one of the greatest ornithological painters of the world”. His published work includes 10 books on birds, probably the most famous being his paintings of parrots, bowerbirds, kingfishers and birds of paradise. Bill’s paintings hang in the Australian National Library and are represented in private collections all over the world. He has been awarded the US Academy of Natural Sciences Gold Medal and in 1994 was awarded the Order of Australia. Bill’s intimate portraits combine science, ecology and art in a way that a camera could never achieve. Although his research expeditions have taken him to wild places in many parts of the world, Bill says the Wet Tropics remains his “true paradise”.
 

George Patterson Bates (Philanthropy)

This is the first time a Cassowary Award has been presented in recognition of corporate philanthropy. George Patterson Bates, selected last year among their peers as the “Advertising Agency of the Century”, volunteered to take on the Australian Rainforest Foundation as a client. The Foundation brings together local community, government, business and people worldwide to work for a better future for our tropical forests. From artists to copywriters, to corporate communications and senior management, everyone at George Patterson Bates has provided professional and committed work free of charge. In five years time, when the Australian Rainforest Foundation is known and supported throughout Australia, our local community will know that the generosity of the people at George Patterson Bates was responsible for the earliest successes.

Max Shephard (Nature Based Tourism)

Although his commercial interests lie squarely with our neighbouring World Heritage Area, the Great Barrier Reef, Max has always looked at the big picture for sustainable tourism for this region. He not only runs the successful Quicksilver reef tour business, he has also been actively involved in many tourism industry organisations, including the national board of the Inbound Tourism Organisation of Australia, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and the Alliance for Sustainable Tourism. Max has been extremely generous with his time in helping the Wet Tropics Management Authority with planning, consultation and presentation of the World Heritage Area. He has volunteered his valuable time at every step and turn of the winding path of management planning, and has done so with good humour. Always insightful and hugely useful, he’s one of the quiet achievers of Tropical North Queensland. Although Max’s work keeps him on the water, we know he’s a bushman at heart.
 

Mark Heaton (Government)

Mark was the first of four technical supervisors to join Geoff Tracey in setting up the shire-based Wet Tropics Tree Planting Scheme. The scheme was designed to employ and retrain timber workers after sawmill closures precipitated by World Heritage listing. Mark covers the Eacham, Atherton and Herberton shires from a base in Malanda. The hostile political climate following World Heritage listing and the pain and bewilderment of rural people suddenly unemployed provided Mark with plenty of challenges. Add to this the novelty of shire involvement in land management using pioneering methods of tree planting and Mark’s successes are even more impressive. Mark’s empathy with working people and his practical skills and knowledge have enabled environmental tree planting to prosper and its benefits realised by farmers, forestry extension officers and shire councillors.

Geoff Tracey and Professor Len Webb (Science and Conservation)

These two are the revolutionaries of Australian rainforest research. Together they turned around popular thought by establishing that our rainforests were not just an overflow of Asian species but among the most significant and ancient forests on earth. When Professor Len Webb and Geoff Tracey began working together in 1950, no one had examined the functions and values of Australia’s tropical rainforests — except for forestry production purposes. Together they travelled all over the wet and seasonal tropics and subtropics, discovering unrecorded, relict and rare species. In just one day at Noah Creek they found six new species of plants. It was due to their efforts that the area was protected as a national park. From their extensive fieldwork Len developed a way to classify the rainforest into 13 main types and a great many more minor types. In 1966 he published a paper promoting the conservation of different habitat types on the wet tropical lowlands. This became a blueprint for the region’s first national parks and changed the way we think about rainforests. Geoff’s abilities as a plant taxonomist are legendary. His definitive work, The Vegetation of the Humid Tropical Region of North Queensland, provided the first tools for assessing forest types and how they should be managed. With his practical ecological knowledge, Geoff sustained the push for World Heritage listing, both as an activist and as a scientist. After listing he continued as the initiator and scientific advisor to the Wet Tropics Tree Planting Scheme. In recent years, he has been lobbying to establish the Australian Tropical Botanical Gardens at Mareeba.