General News
27 October, 2026
Tree ‘never forgotten’
PHILANTHROPIST, environmental activist and long-term resident of Freshwater, Paul Matthews, has bought the entire photographic exhibition ‘Loved and Lost – the Story of The Freshwater Raintree’ that was recently displayed at Narrow Tracks Distillery.
He has donated it to the Cairns Museum.
Mr Matthews was intimately involved in attempts to save the once magnificent and iconic Freshwater raintree from a developers’ chop, the removal of which on Old Smithfield Rd sent a stake through the hearts of many local residents and others, from all over Cairns, who had joined in the fight to save this significant shade tree.
“As a founding member of the Tree Action Group (TAG), under the umbrella of Cairns and Far Northern Environment Centre (CAFNEC), and as a Freshwater resident, I felt it incumbent on me to preserve the outstanding homage to the raintree, that so many people had been a part of the campaign to stop its cutting down,” he said.
“Our local activist group, Freshwater Raintree Action Group (FRAG), evolved into a great example of community coming together to protect their quality of life and the wellbeing of their suburb.”
Photographers Brian Cassey, Kerry Trapnell and John Westaway documented the weekly vigils underneath the tree and much of the wildlife that considered it their refuge.
“Being a local resident, myself, I wanted to make a record of the endeavours of FRAG, TAG and other like-minded folk to preserve this outstanding raintree, a ‘cathedral of nature’ as Costa Georgiadis, the much loved Gardening Australia host, called it when he visited the site”, Mr Cassey said.
“I witnessed something extraordinary when members of the Freshwater community rallied, advocated planned and protested to protect their lifelong suburban sentinel, the monumental Freshwater Raintree,” said documentary photographer Kerry Trapnell.
Dr Nicole Sleeman, a local GP and a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA), who attended many of the rallies beneath the raintree, was instrumental in pulling the exhibition together.
“To be able to bring together over 150 people to the launch, was quite an effort, but it goes to show the passion that people had for preserving the raintree,” she said.
“As a doctor, I know all the adverse health effects of increased heat in our environment and how it affects the most vulnerable in our communities – and so cutting down such a significant shade tree that cools the local environment, particularly as it was adjacent to the local Freshwater State School, is counter-intuitive.”
Diljá Thorpe, a Freshwater raintree advocate and organiser for the event at Narrow Tracks, said she was “so shocked by the real likelihood of the tree being cut down that I felt I had to get involved”.
“I was incredibly disappointed that council had failed the community and that the new owners had refused to engage with us,” she said.
