The Cassowary Awards - 2002

Each year the Wet Tropics Management Authority recognises individuals and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the conservation and presentation of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

The fourth annual Cassowary Awards were held in Cairns at the Cairns City Council Chambers on 24th August 2002 and the awards were presented by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Queensland Premier, Dr. Lesley Clark.

Cassowary Awards 2002 - Dr Lesley Clark, Annabelle Olsson, John Courtenay, John Winter, Andree Griffin, Ernie Raymont, Davey 'Buckaroo' Lawrence, Tony Irvine and Gill Harrington.

The Cassowary Award recipients were:

John Courtenay (Nature Based Tourism)
John receives his award for his tireless commitment to encouraging sustainable, nature based tourism in the World Heritage Area. John is known for his passion for sustainable tourism. After 22 years in the industry, he has become highly regarded in the field in Australia and overseas. He has devised nature based tourism strategies for areas in South Australia, Northern Territory, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. John is travelling next to China to develop a nature based tourism strategy for the Mongolia Steppe Country biosphere reserve. John is actively involved in volunteer work and has served as the Chair of the Pacific Asia Travel Association for approximately 12 years. He is a member of the Alliance for Sustainable Tourism. He sits on the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s Community Consultative Committee and Tourism Industry Liaison Groups. He is also part of the Rainforest Cooperative Research Centre’s project support group. His philosophy for nature based tourism is ‘if the community’s not satisfied with the tourism industry - the visitors won’t be either!’

Tony Irvine (Science)
Tony receives his award for his lifelong devotion to the study of Wet Tropics flora and generously sharing expertise with the wider community. Tony grew up in the industrial area of Melbourne in a yard the size of a postage stamp. His interest in plants was ignited when he attended family picnics with a school friend whose father was a botanist. His interest never wavered and when he finished school he attended Burnley Horticultural College in Melbourne. He then moved to Canberra to start his career as an entomologist with the CSIRO. In 1971 he moved from Canberra to Atherton to start work at the then Division of Wildlife and Ecology at the CSIRO. Since then he has become an expert in wet tropics flora and an active member of the Atherton community. Tony is a founding member and past president of the very successful TREAT program. He is currently the president of the Society for Growing Australian Plants which began in 1976, a member of the North Queensland Palm and Cycad Society. Tony has also been a member of WTMA’s Community Consultative Committee and the Conservation Sector Liaison Group. He is renowned as an avid cyclist and would regularly cycle from Atherton to Cairns to attend meetings. Studying plants must give you an incredible amount of energy! Some of Tony’s most rewarding work is his association with local indigenous groups. Tony said he is learning from the indigenous groups not only language names, but how they use plants for food and medicinal purposes, their cultural meanings as well as how they are classified. But Tony says his ultimate rewarding experience is just being out with nature. Every time he ventures out he sees something different.

Andree Griffin (Arts)
Andree receives her award for her pioneering work recording the birdcalls of the Wet Tropics, allowing countless others to share the passion for the natural environment. Andree’s career in recording birds started in January 1970 when she was asked to identify calls taped in the Paluma rainforest by Dr Ray Swaby. Andree said his enthusiasm was infectious and she carried on from there. Recording birds is not as glamorous as it sounds. It’s a lot of hard work. Sometimes Andree would wait for up to two hours at a time recording the occasional call of the golden bowerbird in its bower. A good bird call recordist needs reliable equipment, a steady hand and a lot of patience as recording birds can be quite frustrating at times. Because microphones tend to pick up all noises, not just the ones you’re aiming it at, when you’re concentrating on a bird call, you tend not to hear background noise. Andree’s says the most interesting bird call is the chowchilla’s but the best singer in our tropical forests is the bowershrike thrush. Not surprisingly the toothbilled bowerbird has the loudest and most persistent song because that’s what he uses to attract females. Andree now spends her time observing birds in her back garden and provides a monthly list of her sightings to the Atlas of Australian Birds.

Davey 'Buckaroo' Lawrence and the Girramay Elders (Rainforest Aboriginal Culture)
Buckaroo and the Girramay Elders receive their award for an outstanding contribution to the communication of Rainforest Aboriginal culture to visitors and the regional community. Davey Lawrence, or ‘Buckaroo’ as he is affectionately known by all those who have the pleasure to meet him, is a highly respected elder of the Girramay people and the local community. Born in the 1930s at a traditional camp near the Murray River, Buckaroo has lived in the region all his life. His traditional country is that of the north Murray Gorge. Buckaroo started work on cattle stations and farms at a very young age and was well known for his horsemanship. In the 1940s he performed in the last traditional ceremony held along the banks of the Murray River. He has been a long-time advocate for protection of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and is a local expert on cultural heritage. He is often called upon to assist in cultural assessments of sites of significance in the region. His love of his country, his culture and his people is evident in his willingness to share his life with eager listeners. He weaves a colourful tapestry of Aboriginal values and morals, beliefs and traditions in his stories. He regularly teaches rangers and students cross- cultural awareness studies at TAFE and the university. He is a great ambassador of his people and speaks several dialects of his language fluently. He is a law man and upholds the traditional laws of the Girramay people. Buckaroo also features in numerous publications and posters promoting cultural awareness, and his shield and basket making have been featured in many displays. Through Buckaroo the wealth of the Girramay culture is being documented and passed down to the younger generation. He touches the lives of everyone he meets and is a jewel in the crown of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

Ernie Raymont and the Ngadjon-jii Elders (Rainforest Aboriginal Culture)
Ernie Raymont and the Ngadjon-jii Elders receive their award for an outstanding contribution to the communication of Rainforest Aboriginal culture to visitors and the regional community. Ernie and the Ngadjon-jii Elders have had a long association with the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, culturally, spiritually and environmentally. Ernie Raymont’s traditional country takes in Top Camp, the Malanda region, Mt Bartle Frere and the top of the Russell River Valley. Ernie has lived here all of his life and during this time he has become a well known and respected member of the community through his volunteer work and guided rainforest tours. After listening to Ernie on one of his walks you’ll never view a rainforest bushwalk the same again. He loves sharing his knowledge and is passionate about environmental issues and cultural protection in the World Heritage Area, as well as Aboriginal people’s spiritual connection to country. Ernie’s passion for the country is shown through his involvement in a variety of projects including monitoring and actively protecting Ernie’s totem, the tree kangaroo, working as a Community Liaison Officer with the Authority, and educating wet tropics junior rangers and school children on cross-cultural awareness. Ernie, and tribal Elders Emma Johnstone, Jessie Callico and Henry Robinson, assisted in the compilation of the Ngadjon-jii display at the Malanda Falls Visitor Centre. The elders travelled to regional Historic Societies around the country to gather photographs and information. The Ngadjon-jii elders are ensuring their culture is handed down through the formation of their website - an excellent documentation of the Ngadjon-jii culture and the first local Aboriginal website.

John Winter (Landholder)
John receives his award for his scientific contribution to our understanding of rainforest animals, dedication to community conservation initiatives, and leading by example as an ideal World Heritage landholder. John arrived in North Queensland in December 1972 as the first National Parks research zoologist in the north, based at Atherton. From that time his focus has been on the ecology and biogeography of mammals in the Wet Tropics and Cape York bioregions with particular emphasis on possums. This work contributed to a report in 1984 to the World Wide Fund for Nature on the distribution and habitat requirements of mammals within the Wet Tropics. It was influential in the inclusion of the region on the World Heritage list. John's formal interests with the Authority have included serving on the original Boundary Assessment Team and being a representative on both the Community Consultative Committee and Scientific Advisory Committee. John’s current involvement in the Wet Tropics include Presidency of the Tree Kangaroo and Mammal Group and as a member of CSIRO’s Centre for Rainforest Studies Ethics Committee. His interests in possums led to the purchase in 1986 of a highland rainforest property in the Ravenshoe district where 12 species of possum can be found within 10 kilometres of each other. His current research activities include pied imperial pigeon counts on the Brook Islands, disappearing possums in eucalypt woodland, and changes to mammalian communities on Cape York Peninsula. His management activities include monitoring the endangered northern bettong on the western fringe of the Wet Tropics. He also teaches rainforest ecology and biogeography to local and overseas university undergraduates. In conclusion, John would like to see a greater acceptance by landholders of natural habitats as important parts of the mosaic of coastal and tableland agricultural landscapes, a greater understanding that humans are part of the natural landscape and a bold initiative to reafforest highland rainforest areas as green house refuges and water capture areas.

Annabelle Olsson (Unsung Hero)
Annabelle receives her award for her compassion in treating injured native animals and for inspiring countless other wildlife carers. Annabelle was a founding member of the Cairns Wildlife Rescue Volunteer Group in 1994. Since then, Annabelle’s involvement has been as the President, the vet and the training co-ordinator. Over the years Annabelle has watched Wildlife Rescue grow from a handful of dedicated volunteers taking phone calls, picking up injured animals and caring for them - to a 24 hour hotline, the opening of a Rescue Centre and 300 carers between Tully, the Cape and the Torres Strait. Annabelle says a major challenge for the group is the difficulty to attract corporate sponsorship. The cost of caring for injured wildlife is quite substantial. Medicine, veterinary research and rehabilitation cages are not cheap. One dove may not cost much to care for per week but what if there’s 1000 doves? Pelicans eat up to 5 kilograms of fish per day and one bird of prey can eat several kilos of mice or chickens each week. Annabelle is a strong advocate to make donations tax deductible. At the moment, these costs are met by carers, vets and vet nurses. This truly demonstrates the devotion and generosity of wildlife rescue volunteers. Injured animals can be impolite and quite ungrateful. Annabelle has had first hand experience. When we asked her to provide us with an amusing story Annabelle simply replied: “Trying to catch an injured (and cranky) pelican on The Esplanade mudflats while 8 and a half months pregnant with my second child.” Now that’s dedication!

Graham Harrington (Community Conservation)
Graham receives his award for his generosity in sharing knowledge and for passionate involvement with a range of community conservation groups. Graham came to the Wet Tropics in the mid eighties as Director of the Tropical Forest Research Centre in Atherton. In this capacity, Graham was commissioned to assist with the prospective World Heritage listing of our tropical forests. His CSIRO work greatly improved our knowledge of wet sclerophyll rainforest edge dynamics and since his retirement four years ago, Graham continues to volunteer at the CSIRO. Graham is a member of a number of community conservation groups including the Tree Kangaroo and Mammal Group, the Malanda Land Care Group, and TREAT. Graham has a love for all wildlife but his real passion is birds. He is the founding president of the local Birds Australia chapter, the past president of the national chapter of Birds Australia and a member of Birdlife International. Graham observed and recorded birds in the Wet Tropics region for the Bird Atlas, a publication by Birds Australia. Graham was the chairperson of the Cassowary Scientific Advisory Group that helped to develop the cassowary recovery plan. This 5-year plan is a positive step forward in saving and protecting our endangered cassowary and was approved by Environment Australia last year.