Dear Editor,

Having lived on the north side of the Daintree river all my life, I have a long memory of historical events.

One of the most poignant and painful events for this community was the decision to buyback much of the freehold land and to bring in a very prescriptive town plan so the Daintree Coast was not urbanized. There were actually suicides as a result of these events.

Nonetheless I mostly supported the process; quite simply I and many others did not want to see 1200 houses north of the river.

What we did want was a sustainable community, not only power and waste wise, but in terms of having enough residents to deliver basic essential services. Not high-rises, not giant hospitals, not golf courses, but simple things like recycling services, affordable renewable energy, adequate roads, reasonably regular roadside maintenance and the like.

Buyback threatens our community. Rainforest Rescue, whom I once viewed as the only palatable buyback group is now trying to buy Lot one Cape Tribulation Road, which is surrounded by a resort approval, a block operating as a short-term accommodation and Douglas Shire Esplanade.

It is a block where the only permitted outcome is a house on the high ground near the road and a path to the beach through the swamp, the same as the neighboring houses.

Now this block will be removed from the potential of our community, and there will be one more reason for bureaucrats to deny basic services. Buyback groups are slowly picking away at our community one block a time.

In terms of adding to the protected area, these groups would be well advised to buy farmland south of the river and revegetate that, rather than raising money from easily led southerners, who don’t realize the folly. Not only that, but theses groups fail our community; they can’t even support a renewable microgrid, presumably rather seeing diesel gennies belch, or perhaps hoping high fuel prices will drive people to sell to them cheap?