About World Heritage

Australia is extremely rich in stunning natural environments. Queensland has five natural World Heritage areas, and like a family they have their deep connections, similarities and differences. The Traditional Owners of Queensland's World Heritage properties have been living in these places for

tens of thousands of years and we acknowledge their ongoing custodianship of the land and the amazing ecosystems.

In Far North Queensland, Australia you will find one of nature's most remarkable places, a unique living time capsule that has faced global extinctions, ice ages and flooding seas, even outliving the dinosaurs. It's an epic tale of survival.

Welcome to Queensland's Wet Tropics, a living museum of outstanding beauty. Globally recognized as the second most irreplaceable natural World Heritage area on Earth. Here you will find the world's greatest concentration of ancient flowering plants, surviving almost unchanged for more than 120 million years. So how does Australia, this great southern land of deserts and plains, contain one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests? To understand more, let's take a trip back in time.

For hundreds of millions of years, extreme heat from deep within the Earth's core has caused convection currents to move the world's land masses around the globe as they float on a semi-liquid mantle. This process is called continental drift and helps explain how most plants and animals are spread around the Earth.

Our story begins 200 million years ago, a time when all the world's land masses are joined into a single super continent called Pangea. Around 150 million years ago, Pangaea splits into two smaller

supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana. Gondwana is like a giant jigsaw puzzle consisting of present-day Africa, Australia, Antarctica, Arabia, South America, New Zealand, India and Madagascar. In the landscape of Australia today, plants, animals and ancient fossils provide connections to these other continents. Across Gondwana, dinosaurs of all descriptions roam through forests of conifers, cycads and ferns whose descendants still grow in the Wet Tropics today. At this stage, Antarctica is the core of Gondwana, but it isn't the ice-clad continent we think of today, fossils of now extinct trees show us it was once covered in lush green forests.

It is 140 million years ago, powerful plate tectonics break Africa away from Antarctica. 123 million years ago, India breaks from Antarctica, taking Madagascar with it. At this time, India is still connected to the same tectonic plate as Australia and its movement north causes two earth-shattering events—the fracturing of the Indo-Australian plate, causing Australia to unzip from Antarctica, and the dramatic northern drift of the Australian continent. The first flowering plants evolve, they will eventually come to dominate most plant communities on the planet. Descendants of these early flowering plants still bloom in the Wet Tropics today.

100 million years ago, powerful geological forces beneath the Earth's crust caused eastern Australia to sink and rebound, giving birth to the Great Dividing Range. Meanwhile, the continent is almost split in half by an inland sea that expands and contracts several times.

At about 80 million years ago, the important protease plant family is well established across the Gondwana continents and starts to diversify. The Wet Tropics are home to some of these ancient rainforest trees, including the rose silky oak, tree waratah and Mueller’s silky oak. Other species still thrive across Australia today—the iconic banksia, grevillea and waratah.

Marsupials are a very special group of Australian mammals, they're young and not fully developed at

birth and are carried in a pouch on the mother's belly where they continue to suckle and grow. Marsupials are globetrotters and their evolutionary journey has taken them around the entire planet. The earliest marsupial fossils are from North America, dated at 110 million years old.

Next, the fossil trail leads to South America, where the oldest marsupial fossil found is 65 million years old. The trail then leads to Antarctica, and finally 60 million years ago to Australia. Now famous for its marsupials such as bilbies, kangaroos and koalas. By now, the unzipping of Australia from Antarctica is almost complete, only one point of connection remains—a piece of land we know today as the island of Tasmania.

Australia, Antarctica and South America can be thought of as triplets. By studying fossils and the living plants and animals on these three continents, the connections through deep time become very obvious. Incredibly the oldest fossil, eucalypts, come from Patagonia in South America, where fossils of platypus have also been found. Once in Australia, marsupials diversify into an astonishing range of forms. This is about the same time as songbirds first evolved in the Australian rainforest.

50 million years ago, Australia finally breaks free from Antarctica. While drifting north, Australia crosses an area of hot liquid rock, flowing from Earth's mantle. An upwelling known as a south pacific super swell, forming several volcanic mountain chains including the world's longest. This causes a major uplift along the eastern margin of the Australian continent, thrusting the Great Dividing Range even higher. All this geological upheaval deposits sediments into the sea, creating a perfect foundation for corals to grow—forming another of the world's wonders, the Great Barrier Reef. Australia's separation from Antarctica begins a period of isolation that will last for 35 million years. This isolation allows for the evolution of the unique plants and animals we find in Australia today. The Australian continent is now almost entirely clad in rainforest, perfect for the continuing evolution of songbirds. Ocean currents are powerhouses, driving global climate.

33 million years ago, as South America and Australia move further from Antarctica, the world's most powerful ocean current comes into being—the Antarctic circumpolar current. Circling the globe, this current dramatically cools the world's climate. In Antarctica ice sheets begin to increase, but luckily Australia avoids the chill by moving north, closer to the equator.

It is 25 million years ago, Australia remains in isolation—a type of biological life raft surrounded by ocean. The global climate is warm and wet, and Australia continues to be a mostly rainforest-clad continent. Australia's songbirds are beginning to diversify and as the continent moves ever closer to the Southeast Asian archipelago, they begin to fly out to the rest of the world. Today the origins of 60% of all the world's birds can be traced back to Australia. As the global climate continues to change and Australia journeys north towards the tropics, conditions become drier. Plants and animals must adapt to the changing environmental conditions. Dry adapted plant communities evolve in drying inland areas. The majestic Australia-wide rainforest is now in decline.

15 million years ago, Australia's long isolation ends as the Australian tectonic plate collides with the pacific plate. This has a dramatic effect on the landscape, not only through the power of tectonic forces, but by allowing the movement of animals and plants into and out of Australia. Songbirds emigrate north from Australia, while fruit-eating birds and bats fly south across the island archipelago of Southeast Asia into New Guinea and Australia. They carry the seeds of rainforest trees in their digestive tracts, slowly but surely, these plants make their way down the chain of islands into Australia, where they flourish. As Australia drifted further north, the New Guinea landmass disrupts the flow of monsoonal rains into central Australia. Rainforests retreat to valleys, gorges and mountain tops and pockets free of fire along the east coast's Great Dividing Range. As moist trade winds from the Pacific Ocean and coral sea collide with the Great Dividing Range, water droplets form delivering heavy reliable rainfall. Australia's rainforests have finally found a refuge. Because land bridges never form between Southeast Asia and Australia, deep channels and fast-flowing tides keep large animals from moving between these areas. However a surprising array of rats, lizards and snakes are able to make their way to Australia by rafting from island to island on flood debris.

Two and a half million years ago, the global climate becomes unstable as ice ages come and go. During ice ages, the Earth's climate becomes drier and cooler. The Earth's north and south poles increase in size due to the abundance of floating ice. As a result, global sea levels fall. When the climate cycle warms this ice melts and sea levels rise once more. Australia's now extinct megafauna live during this time. Marsupial lions, wombats the size of rhinos and some of the world's largest birds. By now the Australian rainforest is a fraction of its original size, ice ages come and go, but rainforests survive in climatically stable areas of ever wet habitat, such as mountain tops and river valleys. Plants and animals retreat into these refuges during climate extremes. Thousands of years later when the climate becomes more favourable once again, they move back out into their wider distributions.

Today the Wet Tropics landscape continues to be defined by the global climate. The origins of the Wet Tropics and other World Heritage rainforest areas of eastern Australia share a common ancestry, just like a family. Who would have thought that this sun-burnt great southern land has its origins in a deep green landscape of the distant past? The fact that this rainforest continues to exist is one of nature's greatest triumphs, a true survival story through deep time and an enduring legacy for us all to be proud of and protect.