Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage values
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 and was subsequently expanded and re-inscribed in 1994. The World Heritage criteria current in 1994 and against which the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves (Australia) was listed remain the formal criteria for this property. These criteria have been included in the Values Table below. The World Heritage criteria are periodically revised and the criteria against which the property was listed in 1994 are not necessarily identical with the current criteria.
Criteria
Outstanding examples representing the major stages of the earth's evolutionary history.
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia preserve outstanding examples of ecosystems and taxa from which modern biota are derived, including some of the oldest elements of the world's ferns from the Carboniferous period, one of the most significant centres of survival for Araucarians, an outstanding record of Angiosperms, an outstanding number of the oldest lineages of the Corvida (one of the two major groups of true songbirds that evolved in the Late Cretaceous), and outstanding examples of other relict vertebrate and invertebrate fauna from ancient lineages linked to the break-up of Gondwana. The World Heritage values include:
- rainforests which are exceptionally rich in primitive and relict species, many of which are similar to fossils from Gondwana;
- subtropical rainforest habitat;
- warm temperate rainforest habitat;
- ancient ferns and tree ferns;
- conifers (e.g. hoop pine) and cycads;
- primitive groups within Magnoliales and Laurales (e.g. pepper bushes, sassafras, Trimenia, Wilkiea, Cryptocarya, Litsea);
- primitive groups within Rosidae and Dillenidae (e.g. coachwood, Antarctic Beech, Eucryphia jinksii, turnipwood, Pittosporum, most common in warm temperate and subtropical rainforest types);
- primitive group of Corvida (such as lyrebirds, rufous scrub-bird, bowerbirds and tree-creepers);
- other birds dating from Gondwana (e.g. logrunner, thornbills, scrubwrens and gerygones);
- frogs in the families Myobatrahidae and Hylidae;
- reptiles such as chelid turtles, leaf-tailed gecko and angle-headed dragon;
- monotremes and marsupials; and
- invertebrate fauna with origins in Gondwana, including fresh-water crays, land snails, velvet worms, mygalomorph spiders, flightless carabid beetles, bird-wing butterfly and glow-worms.
- ecosystems and taxa which demonstrate the origins and rise to dominance of cold-adapted/dry-adapted flora, including:
- cool temperate rainforest habitat;
- dry rainforest habitat; and
- plant species in the families Myrtaceae, Casuarinaceae and Proteaceae
Outstanding examples representing significant ongoing geological processes, biological evolution and man's interaction with his natural environment.
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia provides outstanding examples of ongoing geological processes associated with Tertiary volcanic activity, and of biological evolution. The World Heritage values include:
- the caldera of the Tweed Shield Volcano is considered one of the best preserved erosion caldera in the world and is notable for its size, its age (20 million years), and for the presence of a prominent central mountain mass with all three stages of the erosion of shield volcanoes (the planeze, residual and skeletal stages);
- centres of endemism where ongoing evolution is taking place;
- flora and fauna of low dispersal capability that occur in more than one isolated pocket of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia;
- plant taxa that show evidence of relatively recent evolution, including:
- genera in Southern Hemisphere families (e.g. Winteraceae, Monimiaceae and Lauraceae in the Magnolidae, Proteaceae, Cunoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Escalloniaceae, Davidsoniaceae Pittosporaceae, Myrtaceae and Sapindaceae in the Rosidae and, Elaeocarpaceae, Sterculiaceae and Ebenaceae in the Dillenidae); and
- monotypic endemic families (e.g. Akaniaceae and Petermanniaceae);
- animal taxa that show evidence of relatively recent evolution, including:
- 3 species of frogs in the myobatrachid genus Pseudophyrne believed to have diverged in the Pliocene;
- species of frogs in the relict genus Philoria/Kyarranus and the Litoria pearsoniana/ phyllochroa complex;
- reptiles such as Eulamprus spp; and
- invertebrates such as snails, earthworms, crays, velvet worms and carabid beetles, including taxa that show overlap and intergradation of different faunal elements (e.g. ants and dung beetles) and
- the diversity of plant and animal species.
Contain the most important and significant habitats where threatened species of plants and animals of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science and conservation still survive.
The ecosystems of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia contain significant and important natural habitats species of conservation significance, particularly associated with rainforest which once covered much of the continent of Australia and is now restricted to archipelagos of small areas of rainforest isolated largely by sclerophyll vegetation and cleared land. The World Heritage values include:
- habitats associated with:
- subtropical rainforest;
- wet sclerophyll forest;
- montane heathlands;
- rocky outcrops; and
- ecotones between rainforest and sclerophyll communities;
- plant taxa of conservation significance (more than 200 plant taxa, particularly in the families Proteaceae, Myrtaceae and Euphorbiaceae and including species of Cryptocarya, Tasmannia and Endiandra);
- species of vertebrate fauna of conservation significance (including at least 80 taxa such as Albert's lyrebird, rufous scrub-bird, marbled frogmouth, eastern bristlebird, black-breasted button quail, Philoria/Kyarranus spp., pouched frog, barred frogs, parma wallaby, yellow-bellied glider, Hastings River mouse, New Holland mouse, fawn-footed melomys and golden-tipped bat); and
- species of invertebrate fauna of conservation significance (such as the Richmond River bird-wing butterfly and Euastacus jagara).
Heritage values
Relevant links
Before you download
Some documents are available as PDF files. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view the PDF file.
If you are unable to access a publication, please contact us to organise a suitable alternative format.
Key
Links to another web site
Opens a pop-up window