Daintree Rainforest
Located north of Cairns and stretching from the Daintree River estuary to Cooktown, and extending inland to Mossman Gorge and the Great Dividing Range, the Daintree Rainforest is part of Australia's largest continuous area of tropical rainforest — a remnant of a vast forest that once covered the entire continent. It encompasses some of the world's oldest surviving rainforest communities. At around 180 million years old, these forests are nearly 10 million years older than those in the Amazon. The changing climate caused by continental drift has reduced the original forest to small, isolated patches along the east coast.
Much of the Daintree Rainforest is included in the Wet Tropics World Heritage region, which UNESCO listed in 1988.
The rainforest gets its name from the Daintree River, named by George Elphinstone Dalrymple in honour of the Australian geologist and photographer Richard Daintree. It includes several National Parks —including Daintree National Park — as well as areas of State Forest, and privately owned land which is being gradually purchased for conservation.
Although the Daintree Rainforest makes up just 0. 12% of Australia's landmass, it hosts:-
- Around 3, 000 plant species from nearly 210 plant families, with over 900 types of trees;-
- 30% of Australia's total frog, reptile and marsupial species;-
- 90% of the continent's bat and butterfly species;
- About 430 bird species, representing 7% of the country's avian diversity;
- Over 12,000 insect species;
- Some of the earliest land plants and ferns, alongside modern counterparts of Jurassic and Cretaceous fossils;-
- A vast array of lower animals, fungi, lichens, mosses, and microorganisms.
Following an earlier Native Title agreement, a historic arrangement between the area's traditional owners and the Queensland Government in September 2021 saw the eastern Kuku Yalanji people take formal ownership of 160,213 hectares between Mossman and Cooktown, including Daintree National Park.
