The funding is drawn from the Natural Heritage Trust.
Cassowaries are large flightless birds.
Conservative estimates place their numbers at 1,500 to 3,000 individual birds, though some sources claim up to 10,000. In these tropical rainforests, cassowaries live near stream banks and clearings. To date more than 3,000 landholders living adjacent to the World Heritage area are involved in designing traffic controls, pet management projects, establishing cassowary food corridors, constructing fencing to avoid roadkill and DNA trials. Much of their rainforest habitat has now been cleared, and the cassowaries that remain are vulnerable to dogs, shooting, traffic, starvation and disease, nest predation and competition from feral pigs. Habitat clearance for agriculture has virtually ceased but clearing for residential and tourist development continues.