Where in the world are the wet tropics of Queensland?
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| http://www.wettropics.gov.au/maps |
The wet tropics of Queensland are located along the northeastern coast of Australia, consisting of around 8,940 sq. km of protected rainforest which is divided into seven large national parks and over 700 other regulated areas and private properties. These rainforests stretch from Townsville to Cooktown, Queensland, and are bordered by the Great Dividing Range and the Great Barrier Reef. These parks include: Barron Gorge, Black Mountain, Cedar Bay, Daintree, Edmund Kennedy, Girringun, and Wooroonooran National Parks.
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| http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/486/multiple=1&unique_number=565 |
Specifically, Daintree National Park is 1200 sq. km located between the cities of Brisbane and Cairns, and encompasses two small towns and extensive wild forests. This makes it the largest block of continuous rainforest on the continent of Australia.
The Daintree Rainforest is composed of a number of significantly different biogeographical areas, including the Mossman Gorge (dense woodland forest and rainforest), Cape Tribulation (lowland rainforest), Mt. Pieter Botte (granite outcroppings), beaches, and mangrove forests.
Why is this forest important?
The Daintree Rainforest is vital to Australia's biodiversity because they house many endangered species and some of the world's oldest fauna, as well as flora once located on the supercontinent, Pangaea, and Earth's earliest angiosperms. These forests provide an extensive and unique record of evolutionary processes of plants, marsupials, angiosperms, and primitive ecosystems. In fact, these may be the only forests in the world which resemble what life was like up to 415 million years ago!
Pangaea
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| http://www.glosgeotrust.org.uk/huntleyteachers.shtml |
1) Primitive Plant Habitat
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| http://www.daintree-rec.com.au/daintree.html |
Selaginella
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| http://www.daintreerainforestinformation.com/Daintree_Plants.html#3 |
2) Geological Record
In fact, the rainforests contain a record of eight major evolutionary stages in earth's history: the Age of Pteridophytes (vascular plants), the Age of Conifers and Cyades (trees), the Age of Angiosperms (flowering plants), the break-up of Pangaea and then Gondwana (the southern portion of Pangaea), flora and fauna speciation during 35 million years of isolation, the radiation of songbirds, transfer of Asian biota to the Australian continent, and the Pleistocene ice ages. This incredible record contains specimens - including "living fossils" - of species that existed all the way from the Silurian geological period, 443 million years ago.
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| http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/486 |
3) Biodiversity Conservation
Approximately 3,000 plant species and 1/3 of all mammal species endemic to Australia can be found in the Daintree Rainforest. This includes 30% of Australian frog, marsupial, and reptile species, 65% of bats and butterflies, and 20% of the continent's bird species. However, it is remarkable to note that all of this biological diversity exists within the 1% of continental land area that the Daintree Rainforest takes up. The rainforest also contains 13 animal species that do not live anywhere else in the world. These include: the green possum, ringtail possum, marsupial cats, tree kangaroos, antechinus, and a multiple species of bats.
One tourism website provided a list of other interesting animal species that reside within the park:
Birds:
- Cassowary
- Brush Cuckoo
- Chowchilla
- Common Koel
- Common Noddy
- Crested Hawk/Pacific Baza
- Dollarbird
- Dusky Honeyeater
- Eastern Yellow Robin
Mammals:
- Thornton Peak Melomys
- Water-rat
- White-tailed Rat
- Red-legged Pademelon
- Swamp Wallaby
- Northern Brown Bandicoot
- Long-nosed Bandicoot
- Echidna
- Platypus
Reptiles:
- Eastern Water Dragon
- Geckos
- Goannas or Monitor Lizards
- Skinks
- Pythons
- Colubrids
- Turtles
- Crocodiles
Amphibians:
- Dainty Tree Frogs
- Giant White-lipped Tree Frogs
- Green-eyed Tree Frogs
- Northern Stoney Creek Tree Frogs
- Northern Barred Frogs
- Orange-thighed Tree Frog
- Water or Wood Frog
http://www.mossmangorge.com.au/en/The-Environment/Flora-and-Fauna
Many of these species are extremely rare and/or endangered, including the elusive spotted-tailed quoll (the largest carnivorous marsupial) and the tube-nosed bat which some scientists consider the rarest mammal alive in Australia.
Cassowary - the world's most dangerous bird
The swamp wallaby
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| http://www.davidkphotography.com/index.php?showimage=451 |
The state of the ecosystem
The Aboriginal tribe, Kuku Yalanji, has lived in the Daintree Rainforest possibly since 110,000 years ago, cultivating a rainforest-based hunter-gatherer culture in which aspects of the rainforest biota and environment were incorporated into their diet, religion, and medicine. However, in the 1870s, European settlers exploited the area for red cedar lumber, minerals, gold, and tin, and decimated the original Aboriginal population and much of the rainforest. These settlers aggressively cleared the rainforest to make way for sprawling sugar cane plantations and agricultural land all along the coast. However, the rainforest and climate made long-term colonization nearly impossible, and the land became private property. During the 1980s, environmental groups protested the further development of the Daintree area, and in Daintree National Park was founded in 1981 through the Queensland Wet Tropics Acts.
Daintree, Queensland, 1936
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| http://www.douglas-shire-historical-society.org/the_daintree.htm |
In 1988, the United Nations elected the Wet Tropics of Queensland to be a World Heritage Site because of its historical, biological, and scenic merits. At the time, the U.N. deemed the forest to have a relatively low human impact compared to other rainforests around the world, excluding lowland rainforest cleared for agriculture. Since then, Daintree has been managed by the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service and Wet Tropics Management Authority, and has developed a highly successful ecotourism industry that preserves indigenous Aboriginal culture. Other Queensland and Australian environmental statutes have prohibited logging, hunting and certain agricultural practices to allow impacted rainforest to naturally grow back.
Ecotourism in action
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| http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/state-government-blasted-over-lack-of-effort-to-protect-queensland-national-parks-values/story-fndo45r1-1226507016228 |
Management Threats
The Wet Tropics Management Authority's website outlines both direct and indirect threats to the conservation of Queensland rainforests, including the following:
Direct threats
There is a wide range of threats to the biodiversity and scenery of the Wet Tropics. These can be threats to the survival of ecosysytems, threats to individual species or threats to the beauty of the Area. These threats are all discussed in more detail on other pages in the website. The main direct threats are listed below.
- Fragmentation
- Climate change
- Weeds
- Feral animals
- Altered fire regimes
- Altered water flows and water quality
- Cyclones
Indirect threats
There is also a range of underlying pressures on the World Heritage Area. These include:
- Regional population growth
- Urban development and pollution
- Demand for community infrastructure (water, roads, electricity)
- Farming (agriculture, grazing and aquaculture)
- Tourism and recreation
(http://www.wettropics.gov.au/other-threats-to-the-wha)
I've picked a few that may be particularly damaging:
- Fragmentation - Roadways, tracks, powerlines, clearings, and dams prevent wildlife from safely crossing from one area to another.
- Climate change - global warming may affect species in cool areas of the rainforest. Scientists predict that a temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius may lead to the endangerment of 7 frog, 5 mammal, 3 bird, and 3 skink species.
- Invasive/Introduced Species - Weeds suppress native vegetation (ex: Salvinia). Introduced cats, dogs, pigs, cane toads, and deer threaten native vegetation and animals.
- Fire management - Different areas of ecosystem need different amounts of fire, so management authorities need to know when to let fire burn, and when to put it out.
Preventative Measures
Many of the above proposed threats have subsequent strategies to deal with the consequences and to also prevent major changes. These include:
- Fragmentation - Increasing the number of safe crossings for wildlife, including overpasses. Installing more speed bumps, speed regulations, and warning signs for traffic.
- Climate change - Improving rainforest health, resilience, and adaptability. Increasing community awareness about this issue, as well as biological research that may be helpful to currently existing species. Working with worldwide organizations to mediate the effects of climate change.
- Invasive/Introduced Species - Careful removal of introduced species through traps, limited hunting (for example, wild pigs), poison, and fences. Monitoring of invasive plant species to limit their reach.
- Fire management - Working with Aboriginal tribes, management agencies, and scientific researchers to determine the best methods of fire control in certain situations and specific areas of the forest. For example, this study (called Extent and composition of dead wood in Australian lowland tropical rainforest with different management histories) by Simon J. Grove explores the amount of dead wood in 9 different areas of Daintree Rainforest and thus approximates the likelihood and necessity of ground fire.
In addition, I believe that the ecotourism industry can be improved by utilizing clean energy and environmentally-friendly products, and by improving and expanding education programs. For example, the Daintree Eco Lodge incorporates Aboriginal massage practices with conservation education, tours of the rainforest, and sustainable accomodations.
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| http://www.daintree-ecolodge.com.au/ |
Why Daintree Rainforest?
I chose to research the Daintree Rainforest National Park because it is the second most biodiversity rich area in the world besides New Caledonia. In my Life Sciences Evolution and Ecology class, I learned about the different geological processes and phases that shaped today's biogeography, and I thought it was interesting that an entire record and many species of ancient plants were found within this forest.
Cape Tribulation
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| http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.com.au/za/flash.htm#/entries/948 |
References
Websites:
http://rainforest-australia.com/wet_tropics_world_heritage.htm
http://www.wettropics.gov.au/other-threats-to-the-wha
Scholarly Articles:
Grove, Simon J., 2001. Extent and composition of dead wood in Australian lowland tropical rainforest with different management histories. Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, James Cook University. http://www.aseanbiodiversity.info/Abstract/51003430.pdf
Turton, Stephen M., 2005. Managing Environmental Impacts of Recreation and Tourism of Rainforests in Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area. Geographical Research, James Cook University: 43(2): 140-151.
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