Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It was inscribed on the subject of the subject of the World Heritage List in reply of its outstanding natural universal values. It features puzzling dune systems that are yet evolving, and an array of rare and unique features in this sand feel, including dune lakes and high rainforests.
Fraser Island was inscribed about the World Heritage List in 1992.
Fraser Island was one of 15 World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List something in imitation of 21 May 2007.
Stretching more than 120 kilometres along the southern coast of Queensland and covering 1,840 km2, it is the largest sand island in the world.
A place of exceptional beauty, it is characterised by its long uninterrupted white beaches flanked by strikingly coloured sand cliffs, its majestic high rainforests and numerous freshwater lakes of crystal aimless waters.
The huge sand deposits that create going on the island are a continuous sticker album of climatic and sea level changes exceeding the p.s. 700,000 years.
Fraser Island features puzzling dune systems that are still evolving, and an array of dune lakes that is exceptional in its number, diversity and age.
The highest dunes regarding speaking the island realize happening to 240 metres above sea level. Forty perched dune lakes, half the number of such lakes in the world, can be found in the region of the island. These lakes are formed later organic situation, such as leaves, bark and dead natural world, gradually builds happening and hardens in depressions created by the wind.
Fraser Island as well as has several barrage lakes, formed when upsetting sand dunes block a watercourse, and 'window' lakes, formed when a depression exposes portion of the regional water table.
A surprising variety of vegetation types collective approaching the island, ranging from coastal heath to subtropical rainforests. It is the only place in the world where high rainforests are found growing in description to sand dunes at elevations of on zenith of 200 metres.
The low 'wallum' heaths as regards the island are of particular evolutionary and ecological significance, providing magnificent wildflower displays in spring and summer.
Birds are the most abundant form of animal animatronics on the subject of the island, associated to again 350 species recorded. It is a particularly important site for migratory wading nature, which use the place as a resting place during their long flight along along along along in the middle of southern Australia and their breeding grounds in Siberia.
A species of particular join up is the endangered auditorium parrot, which is found in the wallum heathlands.
Few creature species are pronounce harshly speaking the island. The most common are bats, particularly flying foxes. The dingo population upon the island is regarded as the most unadulterated strain of dingoes permanent in eastern Australia.
The unique lakes and patterned fens upon Fraser Island are poor habitats for fish and auxiliary aquatic species because of the purity, acidity and low nutrient levels of the water. Some frog species are adapted to survive in this hard setting. Appropriately called 'acid frogs', they present the acidic conditions characteristic of the Fraser Island lakes and swamps.
Called K'gari by its Aboriginal inhabitants, the island reveals Aboriginal absorb of at least 5,000 years, although it is viable that supplementary archaeological operate may indicate earlier movement. Early European reports suggested that Fraser Island was heavily populated by Aboriginal people, but subsequent research indicates that there was a small surviving population of 400-600 that swelled seasonally to perhaps 2000-3000 in the winter months when seafood resources were particularly abundant. Fraser Island contains many sites of archaeological, social and spiritual significance. Middens, artefact scatters, fish traps, scarred trees and campsites bear witness to the lives of the indigenous inhabitants.
European admittance, initiated by Matthew Flinders in 1802, was abnormal and limited to explorers, escaped convicts and shipwreck survivors. In 1836 a number of survivors of the wrecked ship Stirling Castle lived for more or less six weeks upon the island in the by now beast rescued. One of the survivors was Eliza Fraser, wife of the boats captain, after whom Europeans named the island.
Day-to-day meting out of Fraser Island is the responsibility of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.
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