I’m back. Our holiday to far-north Queensland was wonderful. We visited some magical places and I loved being reminded of just how beautiful nature is.

Unfortunately, upon return I was forced straight back into reality, with my first morning back at work spent listening to a presentation on climate change and its impact on sea level (very depressing!). It got me thinking...maybe this trip was Little eco’s one and only opportunity to experience some of the magical places we visited and see their amazing wildlife. Maybe they will be destroyed or extinct by the time she returns?

…Like the Daintree rainforest - part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area - which was identified in a report released this week as being particularly threatened by the impacts of climate change.

The Daintree rainforest is home to the endangered Cassowary. We were lucky enough to see one in the wild. We were also lucky enough to see what happens when a Cassowary defends his territory against unwise tourists who decide to get too close – hillarious!.

Little eco learnt that the Cassowary eats rainforest fruit and she had the opportunity to forage through the rainforest collecting an amazing array fruit of different colours and shapes.

She also learnt how to identify a Cassowary scat (or as she calls it – Cassowary poo) by the half digested splat of the very same types of fruit.

Cassowaries are threatened by the clearing of their rainforest habitat for farming and urban development and also by vehicle strikes, dog attacks, human interactions, pigs, and disease. Will Cassowaries still exist in the wild when Little eco returns? Or will her future encounters sadly be restricted to zoos or be of the fibreglass kind?

Little eco also had the opportunity to see the Great Barrier Reef - another of the world Heritage Areas identified as being at particular risk from climate change.

We even got to see the vulnerable Green Turtle - which is threatened by habitat damage due to coastal development, by-catch and from a range of other human impacts such as entanglement and ingestion of rubbish.

Will Little eco ever see one again? I hope so.