About the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area

• The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area lies between Townsville and Cooktown on the north east coast of Queensland and covers an area of 894,420 hectares.
• Some plant and animal species have been here for over 100 million years, making this the oldest continually surviving rainforest on earth. Twelve of the world's nineteen families of primitive flowering plants occur in the wet tropics.
• Over 2,800 different plant species grow in the World Heritage Area, and more than 700 of these are found nowhere else in the world.
• The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area covers less than 0.01% of Australia, yet is home to 30% of its marsupial species, 60% of its bats, 30% of its frogs, 23% of its reptiles, and over 40% of its birds. Many of these species are endemic to the region.
• There are more than 20 Aboriginal tribal groups with ongoing traditional connections to land in the World Heritage Area. Natural features are interwoven with Aboriginal people's religion, spiritual and economic use, and social and moral organisation.
• Tourism companies which use the World Heritage Area are encouraged to support Australia's duty under the World Heritage Convention to protect, conserve, present, rehabilitate and transmit to future generations the special values of the area.

For more information visit www.wettropics.gov.au

Threats to the World Heritage Area

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that global warming is likely to be between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. The IPOCC predicts a significant loss of biodiversity in the Wet Tropics rainforests by 2020.
(Fourth Assessment Report, IPCC, 2007)

With a rise in temperature of just 1 degree Celsius at least one unique wet tropics species — the Thornton Peak nursery frog — will become extinct. With a 2 degree Celsius increase the wet tropics ecosystems will begin to unravel.

At a 3.5 degree Celsius increase, around half of the 65 species of animals unique to the wet tropics will have vanished, while the rest will become restricted to tenuous habitats of less than 10% of their original distribution. In effect their populations will be non-viable, their extinction only a matter of time.
(Tim Flannery, “The Weather Makers”, 2005)

A one degree Celsius rise in average global temperature will occur no matter what we do, however by reducing CO2 emissions we can limit the temperature rise and thus protect the world's ecosystems.

With this in mind Wait–a–While Rainforest Tours will, starting in 2008, offset all carbon emissions from our tour vehicles through the Carbon Reduction Institute. Further to this, Wait–a–While will also seek to become an accredited carbon neutral business, and encourage other local businesses to do the same.

For information on how to offset your carbon emissions and/or become an accredited carbon neutral business go to www.noco2.com.au.