The Cairns Post - August 2002

Cairns Find Lights Hope of Biotech Boom

Biotechnology can become the Far North's largest industry behind tourism, experts say.

Cairns Chamber of Commerce members yesterday heard about a discovery which could be the first of many ahead of the new Australian Tropical Forest Institute.

BioProspect Australia founding member Greg Eaton said the new insecticide Qcide, recently discovered on the Tableland, could bring tens of millions of dollars into the region.

Scientists discovered the natural insecticide, which Mr Eaton described as working better than "anything ever discovered before", in 33 eucalyptus trees on the Tableland.

Mr Eaton said if scientists had not made the discovery, those trees could now be ash.

Instead, BioProspect, the first commercial company behind the forest institute, is now well into plans for the insecticide to be produced on a commercial basis.

Mr Easton said farmers would be contracted to farm thousands of hectares of the trees in Far North Queensland.

"The message to farmers is protect that block of unsullied land you have and let the scientists in there to do some discovery work before you bulldoze it," he said.

"Almost one in 20 of the world's plants exist north of Cairns."

Under a "benefit-sharing" agreement with the State Government, benefits must go back to the community where the discovery was made.

Mr Eaton said herbicides and pharmaceuticals had been discovered from the reef and two forms of insecticide had been discovered on the Atherton Tableland.

Biodiscovery will be one of the strands of research undertaken at the Australian Tropical Forest Institute to be established next door to the James Cook University's Cairns campus.

The institute is a partnership between the Rainforest Co-operative Research Centre, James Cook University, the Wet Tropics Management Authority and commercial investor BioProspect.

Rainforest CRC chief executive officer Nigel Stork said the $7.8 million recently announced for the institute by Premier Peter Beattie was a loan.

Professor Stork said the institute would negotiate the length of the loan with the State Government, but the business plan showed the centre could provide a direct return to the Government of $19 million over 10 years.

He said the aim was the make the facility the premier tropical forest institute in the world.

"This is where biodiversity is," Professor Stork said.

"We have got to make use of these resources." He said the institute would not just deliver commercial outcomes, but would go some way to solving the "enormous" environmental problems faced in Australia.

Member for Barron River Lesley Clark, who has been involved in the evolution of the institute, said the biotechnology industry had the potential to grow to the region's second biggest industry.

Marie Low

The Cairns Post - Wednesday 21 August 2002

For More Information:

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Cairns Convention Centre
Telephone: 07-4042 4200
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