PRUE HEWETT

Daintree Rainforest is my retirement and my rejuvenation. For 17 years I have walked through the middle of the world’s oldest rainforest on a daily basis, absorbing its secret messages and sharing my unique perspective with travellers from around the world. I have found that through the ageing process, a heightened awareness of the environment compensates for the loss of spring in my step and life remains exciting and gratifying.

Presentation and transmission of World Heritage natural and cultural values remains paramount to conservation of this global treasure. Daintree Rainforest has established a human connection with the environment over three generations that exemplifies the importance of sustainability. It is a cultural change of great importance that has enabled conservation through ecotourism payments – totally user pays and sustainable.

Today I can look back on 75 years of living and claim the management and conservation of Daintree Rainforest through ecotourism as my greatest achievement.

NEIL HEWETT

As a Daintree World Heritage Rainforest inhabitant, I have scrutinised the landscape of the world’s oldest rainforest on a daily and nightly basis, over the passed seventeen consecutive years.  It is safe to say that I have spent more time examining the middle of the world’s oldest rainforest (at night), than any other person in human history, and yet I continue to be astonished by the diversity and sophistication of adaptive strategies produced by a longer evolutionary refinement than any other ecosystem on the planet.  Variations of camouflage and mimicry are so perfectly deceptive, that Australia’s most ‘alive’ terrestrial ecosystem must also be one of its most secretive.

For the combination of aspirations of the most discerning and determined eco-travellers, I take great pleasure in providing successful engagement with undisturbed rainforest and a myriad of Australia’s most unique wildlife in natural habitat.