3.5.7 Rainforests

Rainforests are forested ecosystems with closed canopies.964 Rainforests can be found scattered throughout the Catchment from cloud rainforests of the Wet Tropics to coastal vine thicket rainforests. Rainforests provide a range of ecological processes for the Reef, including nutrient uptake, carbon sequestration, slowing hydrological flows and sediment trapping.961 

Threats to rainforests are predominantly climate change, land clearing and invasion of fragmented areas by weeds.965,966,967 Recovery of fire-sensitive communities, especially upland rainforests, from the 2018 bushfires in the Mackay highlands is likely to take decades to centuries.968

Wet Tropics lowland tropical rainforest is listed as an endangered ecological community 

Since 2019, it is estimated that the Cape York and Mackay Whitsunday regions have the greatest extent of remaining rainforests of 99 and 91 per cent, respectively. In contrast, the Burnett Mary and Fitzroy regions, which have experienced the greatest clearance rates since pre-European settlement, have only 39 and 37 per cent remnant cover, respectively.110 In 2021, the lowland tropical rainforest of the Wet Tropics was listed as an endangered ecological community under the EPBC Act based on historical losses due to clearing and resulting fragmentation, and ongoing threats to its integrity and function. 

Rainforests are affected by climate change, land clearing and historical habitat loss and fragmentation. The extent of rainforests in the Catchment has remained relatively stable since 2019.

Photograph showing a young boy jumping off a large granite boulder into a clear pool of water that reflects the greens of the rainforest around it. One side of the boulder has moss growing up to about 50cm above the water mark, and lichens cover the other sides near the water.
Rainforest at Babinda Boulders in Far North Queensland © Dieter Tracey 2022
  • 110. State of Queensland (Department of Environment Science and Innovation) 2023, Biodiversity status of pre-clearing and 2021 remnant regional ecosystems - Queensland series, Version 6.13 edn.
  • 961. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2012, Coastal ecosystems assessment framework 2012, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville.
  • 964. Neldner, V.J., Niehus, R.E., Wilson, B.A., McDonald, W., Ford, A.J., et al. 2023, The vegetation of Queensland. Descriptions of broad vegetation groups. Version 6.0. Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science, Department of Environment and Science, Information Technology and Innovation.
  • 965. Howard, M., Pearl, H., McDonald, W.J., Shimizu, Y., Srivastava, S.K., et al. 2023, Assessment of the diversity, distinctiveness and conservation of Australia’s Central Queensland coastal rainforests using DNA barcoding, Diversity 15(3): 378.
  • 966. Ruting, N. 2019, Floristic diversity and patch dynamics in hyper-disturbed tropical lowland rainforest fragments in north Queensland: no evidence for cyclone-disturbance and fragmentation driving species assemblages towards early-successional states, Masters (Research) Thesis, James Cook University.
  • 967. Weber, E.T., Catterall, C.P., Locke, J., Ota, L.S., Prideaux, B., et al. 2021, Managing a World Heritage Site in the face of climate change: A case study of the Wet Tropics in northern Queensland, Earth 2(2): 248-271.
  • 968. Hines, H.B., Brooke, M., Wilson, J., McDonald, W. and Hargreaves, J. 2020, The extent and severity of the Mackay highlands 2018 wildfires and the potential impact on natural values, particularly in the mesic forests of the Eungella-Crediton area, Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland 125: 139-157.