Greater Blue Mountains Area

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**Greater Blue Mountains Area**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Australia
Type	Natural
Criteria	ix, x
Identification	#917
Region^b	Asia-Pacific
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	2000 24th Session
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

The Greater Blue Mountains Area is a World Heritage Site in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 24th Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Cairns from 27 November to 2 December 2000.

[edit] Description

It is an area of rugged tablelands, sheer cliffs, deep, inaccessible valleys and swamps teeming with life. The unique plants and animals that live in this natural place relate an extraordinary story of Australia's antiquity, its diversity of life. This is the story of the evolution of Australia's unique eucalypt vegetation and its associated communities, plants and animals.

The Greater Blue Mountains Area consists of 10,300 square kilometres of mostly forested landscape on a sandstone plateau 60 to 180 kilometres inland from central Sydney. The area includes vast expanses of wilderness and is equivalent in area to almost one third of Belgium, or twice the size of Brunei.

The property, which includes eight protected areas in two blocks separated by a transportation and urban development corridor, is made up of seven outstanding national parks as well as the famous Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve. These are the Blue Mountains National Park, Wollemi National Park, Yengo National Park, Nattai National Park, Kanangra-Boyd National Park, Gardens of Stone National Park and Thirlmere Lakes National Park.

The area does not contain mountains in the conventional sense but is described as a deeply incised sandstone plateau rising from less than 100 metres above sea level to 1 300 metres at the highest point. There are basalt outcrops on the higher ridges. This plateau is thought to have enabled the survival of a rich diversity of plant and animal life by providing a refuge from climatic changes during recent geological history. It is particularly noted for its wide and balanced representation of eucalypt habitats from wet and dry sclerophyll, mallee heathlands, as well as localised swamps, wetlands, and grassland. Ninety-one species of eucalypts (thirteen percent of the global total) occur in the Greater Blue Mountains Area. Twelve of these are believed to occur only in the Sydney sandstone region.

The area has been described as a natural laboratory for studying the evolution of the eucalypts. The largest area of high diversity of eucalypts on the continent is located in south-east Australia. The Greater Blue Mountains Area includes much of this eucalypt diversity.

As well as supporting such a significant proportion of the world's eucalypt species, the area provides examples of the range of structural adaptations of the eucalypts to Australian environments. These vary from tall forests at the margins of rainforest in the deep valleys, through open forests and woodlands, to shrublands of stunted mallees on the exposed tablelands.

In addition to its outstanding eucalypts, the Greater Blue Mountains Area also contains ancient, relict species of global significance. The most famous of these is the recently-discovered Wollemi pine, a "living fossil" dating back to the age of the dinosaurs. Thought to have been extinct for millions of years, the few surviving trees of this ancient species are known only from three small populations located in remote, inaccessible gorges within the area. The Wollemi pine is one of the world's rarest species.

More than 400 different kinds of animals live within the rugged gorges and tablelands of the Greater Blue Mountains Area. These include threatened or rare species of conservation significance, such as the Tiger Quoll, the koala, the Yellow-bellied Glider and the Long-nosed Potoroo as well as rare reptiles including the Green and Golden Bell Frog and the Blue Mountains water skink.

[edit] World Heritage criteria

The Greater Blue Mountains Area was inscribed on the World Heritage List against the natural criteria listed below:

Natural criterion (ii) outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals.

The combination of fine-scale spatial variation, high environmental complexity and exceptional stability over evolutionary time has allowed some environments and the biota that persist in them to remain largely unchanged over geological time. Even recently, a species of extraordinary global significance, a relict dinosaur of the plant world, the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) has been discovered in the property.

The steep terrain and sharp environmental gradients have wrought major evolutionary change on some taxa, including the eucalypts, resulting in an exceptional biodiversity within the eucalypt communities that dominate the place. Importantly, the evolutionary processes underpinning this diversity are believed to be ongoing, resulting in an evolutionary 'laboratory' that is exceptional in the world both in its treasures from the past, and its species that are evolving into the future.

Natural criterion (iv) contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

The Greater Blue Mountains Area affords representation of a major component of global biodiversity not previously represented on the World Heritage List. A substantial proportion of Australia's biodiversity associated with the range of ecosystems that dominate large parts of the continent and lie between rainforest and arid ecosystems occur within the Greater Blue Mountains Area.

The Greater Blue Mountains Area represents the highest biodiversity in temperate forest environments with integrity, in Australia and globally, both within and across taxonomic levels. The property includes almost ten percent of the Australian vascular plant flora and is outstanding on a global scale for its biodiversity. Australia, with approximately ten percent of the global total of known vascular plants is a major centre of biodiversity. The Greater Blue Mountains Area also contains a significant number of rare and threatened species, many endemic to the area.