The Skyrail Rainforest Foundation (SRF) is pleased to announce a $30,000 commitment to support several PhD, masters and honours projects being undertaken by James Cook University students.

SRF Director Max Shepherd said funding had been allocated to projects with a specific focus on tropical rainforest critical conservation issues and endangered species.

"The Skyrail Rainforest Foundation is committed to supporting projects which will provide definite outcomes facilitating a greater understanding of tropical rainforests, their flora, fauna, ongoing conservation and protection," Mr Shepherd said.

"Foundation-funded projects have yielded excellent results this year, including the rediscovery of a frog species not seen for 17 years and the betterment of management practices for the Southern Cassowary population," he said.

"The Skyrail Rainforest Foundation is proud to announce its new student funding and looks forward to the research results."

The successful projects are:

• Brooke Bateman: Conservation of the northern bettong (Bettongia tropica): limits to current distribution, and a model for predicting effects of climate change.
• Carl Wardhaugh: Microhabitat utilisation and the spatial temporal distribution of rainforest canopy insects.
• Robert Puschendorf: Is the dry forest a refuge from disease related to amphibian declines?
• Elizabeth Pryde: Does a native timber plantation in Papua New Guinea, and its surrounding rainforest matrix, provide sustainable habitat for local avifauna?
• Dr Mike Liddell: Tropical Lowland Rainforest Phenology: Searching for climatically driven changes in reproductive phenology.
• Peter Byrnes: Impact of roads on medium-sized, ground-dwelling rainforest mammals in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
• Andres Viteri: Physiological tolerances of Microhylid frogs of the Wet Tropics rainforest - the potential impact of climate change.

Successful student applicant Peter Byrnes, said the Foundation’s funding was crucial to ensuring ongoing progress in his research.

"The Skyrail Rainforest Foundation funding has allowed me to purchase equipment essential to the completion of my PhD, equipment that will lead to a better understanding of the complex interactions occurring between roads and traffic and the animals living adjacent to them," Mr Byrnes said.

"Without this funding, this research would not be possible and a large gap in our understanding of these impacts would remain unfilled," he said.

The Skyrail Rainforest Foundation was established in 2005 with the primary objective of raising and distributing funds to support tropical rainforest research and education projects. Registered as a tax deductible recipient, the Foundation raises money through membership and donations.

Each year students are invited to submit funding applications, which are assessed by the SRF's Public Fund Management Committee with representatives from James Cook University, Environmental Protection Agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Skyrail Rainforest Cableway.