The Reef, the Roos and Angels Down Under: Aussie Treasures

By David Drake ——————-

The Australian tour ended in Cairns, Australia. CEO Paul Niederer of ASSOB (Association of Small Scale Offerings Board)—the seven-year-old crowdfunding leader of Australia—helped organize the conferences in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Cairns. Cairns and the Tablelands stole my heart.

Cairns, with its population of 146,000, is home to the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately the reef is so far from the shore (sometimes 1-1.5 hours away) that diving communities have failed and divers opt for longer stays elsewhere. The beaches are small yet pristine. Christine Doan, our hostess, and business consultant Troy Haines of The Space, showed us the Tablelands.

U.S.-born Christine Doan landed in the Tablelands (an hour west of Cairns) in 1970 and instantly fell in love with the landscape. Decades of tree cutting had converted the land into the most beautiful landscape, green year-round due to its location in the tropical forests.

 Christine competed in equestrian dressage in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and still has the energy of a typical seven year old. She bred and sold two grand-prix dressage horses for $1.5 million each 20 years ago, ran a Somalian refugee camp in the 70s, formulated a carbon sequestration scheme 10 years before its time in the 90s, donated land to a retirement home, bought 100+ acres of land and rainforest to maintain sustainable living, and is a passionate expert on the nearly extinct Tree Kangaroo (Tree Roos) that only exist in Northern Queensland.

The Tree Roos are adorable small kangaroos that live, as you might guess, in the trees. They are absolutely amazing, but they are threatened with extinction. So I have taken it upon myself to work with Christine Doan and the Aussies to save the Roos. Our mantra will be saving the Reefs and Roos—the world’s largest Great Barrier Reef and the almost extinct and little-studied Tree Kangaroo, two tropical treasures of Cairns and the Tablelands.

One innovation we saw Down Under came from Amanda. She showed us how research carried out over the past five years has created the world’s first aqua pools in a tropical location. In layman’s terms, their patented pools don’t run on chloride, salt, or magnesium, but rather rely on a perfect symbiosis of invisible algae microbes that keep the pools crystal-clear for months. I saw fish, plants, and pools that formed one green sustainable ecosystem; I swam with fish in pristine waters with growing seagrass. You can leave the ecosystem unattended for two or three months and when you return have nothing to do but clean the algae on the bottom of the pool—no chemicals, no upkeep, no environmentally damaging chlorine overflowing during rainstorms. Florida will be the most explosive market for this green pool environment. The company just got its first five orders.

So this paradise of tropical rainforest and beach landscapes, unappreciated and undervalued except for divers, presented innovations, innovators, and leaders in sustainability. This has become one of my Top 10 destinations in the world to visit. The vibrant innovation and energy of the inhabitants moved me as much as the surf on the beach and the cuteness of the fuzzy endangered Tree Roos.

Please join campaign  to save the Tree Roos by emailing  at David@LDJCapital.com.

David Drake is an early-stage equity expert and the founder and chairman of LDJ Capital, a New York City private equity firm, and The Soho Loft, a global event-driven financial media company helping firms advertise for investors. He writes regularly for Forbes and Thomson Reuters.