The site is little known to the general public; yet UNESCO has included it on its famous World Heritage List since 1986. Today, on the occasion of your next trip to Australia, the LEC organization tells you about the Gondwana rainforests.
The "Gondwana Rainforests of Australia," in the eastern part of the island
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia is the name given to a site comprising several protected areas. Most of this area lies along the Great Escarpment on Australia’s east coast. It includes (non-exhaustive list) the following national parks:
- of the Main Range
- of Mount Barney
- by Lamington
These forests owe their "rainforest" designation to their high rainfall, which is characteristic of southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales.
Volcanoes and rare species
The site’s greatest strength, as recognized by UNESCO, lies in the exceptional geological features found around the craters of the shield volcanoes, as well as the large number of rare and endangered species it is home to. This series of reserves contains a very wide range of plant and animal communities and lineages that originated in Gondwana in ancient times, many of which have survived largely or exclusively in these forests.
Tracing the history of the planet through the Gondwana rainforests
By the organization’s own admission, these two factors are of paramount importance to science and conservation. The Gondwana rainforests offer, quite simply,highlyrepresentative examples of themajor stages inthe history ofEarth’s evolution (it was following the breakup of Gondwana, a supercontinent formed at the very end of the Neoproterozoic, that Australia separated from Antarctica), and provide valuable illustrations of important ongoing geological processes.