Wet Tropics of Queensland
Australia · Oceania
About
The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site is an area of approximately 8,940 km2 (3,450 sq mi) of very wet forests on parts of the coast and adjacent ranges of tropical Queensland, Australia. The area meets all four of the natural heritage selection criteria for a World Heritage site. World Heritage status was declared in 1988, and on 21 May 2007 the Wet Tropics was added to the Australian National Heritage List.
The tropical forests have the highest concentration of primitive flowering plant families in the world. Only Madagascar and New Caledonia, due to their historical isolation, have humid, tropical regions with a comparable level of endemism.
The Wet Tropics rainforests are a biodiversity hotspot and are recognised internationally for their ancient ancestry and many unique plants and animals. The area covers 0.1% of the Australian landmass but contains 50 per cent of all the nation's species. Many plant and animal species in the Wet Tropics are found nowhere else in the world. The Wet Tropics has the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforests on earth.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.