COMMENT: Nature will recover, it's the Daintree way of life

LAWRENCE MASON - AN INTROSPECTIVE

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The Daintree will return to normal - in time, says a long time local resident. Picture: DSC

I am starting to see and experience all the various levels of grief. People are slowly realising what ACTUALLY happened. And while we have first looked inwardly at our homes and businesses, we are now looking at the forest and rivers we love.

It is confronting to look out a window and see a new rock face, landslide or ripped up riverbank. And let’s be clear there is no doubt some of this has been exacerbated by unwise clearing of river bank and of course roads destabilise hillsides.

But looking at this from a distance, we have to realise that nature will prevail.

When they built Noah Range people said it would be a terrible scar forever. Initially the views were spectacular, then they shrank to two little spots, then for the last ten years even they have been over grown. It was hard to see from the sea.

The Mason Creek landslide of 20 years ago is now invisible.

These ones will also heal, or alternately become new open spaces, with opportunity for carnivorous plants and orchids.

We need to remember that we live in a geologically stable zone where the primary way forward naturally is erosion and these folded mountains having been doing that for eons. Very inconvenient for us, but it is what science tells us. Learning it in a classroom never prepares us for reality!

I have just been given the JCU study on the Daintree flood plain and I will admit I have not re-read it yet.

But my recollection is the researchers said that a 12m flood was around half what they expected levels may have been on occasion in the last 5000 years.

I will update this when time permits a re-read. Given this, 15m is still not huge. Therefore the mighty Daintree has probably recovered from bigger floods.

Here in the rainforest, primitive Annonas will flower, only doing so after wind. Secondary plants whose seeds have waited many years dormant will sprout and repair. New rock faces await orchids and carnivorous plants. Expect more butterflies as some use regrowth species like Euodias. The devastation spells danger for some, but opportunity for others. Such is the cycle of life in the wet tropics.

I am no river expert, but I expect the damaged river banks and log jams will provide the same opportunities.

The silt is massively fertile, in fact my Great Grandfather selected land on the Barron Delta for that reason alone.

His name lives on; the bridges are named The WW Mason Bridges near the airport. That fertile silt will be the ideal ground for new growth and I predict the banks will flourish quickly. Perhaps we need to ensure that where new trees grow a buffer is maintained, but believe me nature will prevail.

On my property, Myall Creek flooded about 1.5m LESS than the 1981 flood. We have forest buffers of around 50m and even so river banks have been scarred and there are small landslides.

But I know from the 81 experience that it will all be back to normal in a couple of years. Our swimming hole is already looking great. Selaginella will colonise the bare earth with other small plants.

We live in the Wet Tropics. This sort of thing will happen again (hopefully not when I am around), and has happened before. Please be positive and know that nature will rebound, and fast. The only negative is that Stinging Plant LOVES the world Jasper made. In a year stings will be common, but that is another story.

 

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