The Gondwana Rainforests in Australia are the biggest subtropical rainforests in the world. Most of it is on the east coast of the country, along the Great Escarpment. Geological features that are only found near craters stand out. It says that the rainforest is important to science and conservation around the world because it is home to many rare and endangered species. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986 because there aren’t many places on Earth where so many living plants and animals are mostly the same as their fossilized ancestors.
Gondwana Rainforests of Australia
In the Gondwana Rainforest area, there are about 40 different reserves. It is between the cities of Brisbane, Queensland, and Newcastle, New South Wales. They can be as small as a few trees in a gully or as big as thick forests that cover big valleys and mountain ranges. Gondwana used to be alive, as shown by fossils, so the Gondwana Rainforests are named after it.
It was covered by rainforests with the same kinds of animals that live there now. The area between New South Wales and Queensland does not have all of Australia’s Gondwanan rainforests. The Tarkine wilderness in Tasmania is home to the largest Gondwanan rainforest in Australia. Every year, about 2 million people visit the Gondwana rainforest reserves in Queensland and New South Wales.
The Gondwana Rainforests are a group of rainforests in the northeast of New South Wales and the southeast of Queensland. It is a great place to see major events in Earth’s history, geological and biological processes that are still going on, and a wide range of living things. This group of reserves is home to many communities and lines of plants and animals that come from the old continent of Gondwana.
Many of these only live in or can be found in the Gondwana Rainforests. Many plants and animals in the Gondwana Rainforests are in danger of going extinct. There are four national parks in the north of Queensland. They are Mount Barney, Springbrook, Mount Barney, and Mount Chinghee. The Main Range is in the middle, and Mount Barney is in the south.
Gondwana Rainforest Queensland
The Barrington Tops, Dorrigo, Mount Warning, New England, Mebbin, Nightcap, Border Ranges, Oxley Wild Rivers, Washpool, Willi Willi, and Werrikimbe national parks are all in the southernmost part of New South Wales. Most people go to Dorrigo National Park and Springbrook National Park’s “Natural Bridge.”
Many trees were cut down in the area in the past, and now only 1% of the original Australian Gondwana rainforest is left. Most places where there used to be trees now have forests of eucalyptus. In Australia in 2019 and 2020, when bushfire season was going on, many parts of the Gondwana rainforest were destroyed for the first time. Early reports say that by January 2020, up to 53% of the forests may have burned down.
Animals in the Gondwana Rainforest
Some of the places that have been destroyed are important for species that are in danger of going extinct, such as the nightcap oak and the giant barred frog. People think that these horrible fires start in places where fires have never started before. When flammable eucalyptus trees grow near places where forests have been cut down, these fires can start.
People have questioned the claim that the rainforest has “never burned before.” Because of a story that came out in The Cairns Post on October 25, 1951. It said that a fire in Lamington National Park had “burned out about 2,000 acres of dense rainforest country.” The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia are split into parts that go from north to south for the Australian National Heritage List.
