Australia’s Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland is
recognised as one of the few remaining wild places on earth.
Covering an area of almost 140,000km2, it is the single largest
area of eastern Australia remaining relatively untouched by the
influence of modern industrialisation. Inhabited for at least
40,000 years, the region supports a diverse array of natural and
cultural resources, including half of the country’s bird species
and a third of its mammals, as well as possessing wide-ranging
habitats including the world’s largest intact tropical savannah
grasslands, one fifth of Australia’s ancient rainforests,
parabolic dune fields and unmodified rivers, as well as
archaeological residues of Indigenous and European culture. As
early as 1982, the potential world heritage value of the Cape
York Peninsula Region (CYPR) was recognised by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the advisory body
established by the UNESCO World Heritage bureau to recommend
sites for possible inscription