Daintree Rainforest, Tropical rainforest in Far North Queensland, Australia.
The Daintree Rainforest covers about 1,200 square kilometres of tropical Queensland, from the Daintree River north to Cooktown and west to the Great Dividing Range. It forms part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland, the largest contiguous tropical rainforest in Australia. The Daintree River drains the forest, and roads north of the river wind through the trees. The area includes the Daintree National Park, state forest and some private land.
The Daintree is a remnant of a forest that once covered Australia, surviving 120 million years of climatic change caused by continental drift. Its plant communities are about 180 million years old, roughly 100 million years older than the Amazon. The Kuku Yalanji have lived here for over 50,000 years, and in 2021 they gained formal ownership of 160,213 hectares from Mossman to Cooktown.
The rainforest is named after Richard Daintree, a geologist and photographer (1832–1878) who never set foot in it; his geological surveys led to gold and coal finds. The Kuku Yalanji are its oldest inhabitants, present for over 50,000 years, and in 2021 they won formal ownership of 160,213 hectares from Mossman to Cooktown, including Daintree National Park.
Visitors access the rainforest by crossing the Daintree River via cable ferry, which operates daily and brings more than 400,000 people into the area each year for exploration.
The region hosts approximately 3,000 plant species including primitive flowering plants, and provides habitat for the endangered southern cassowary, whose population has grown from 54 to over 500 birds.
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