Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context?Lessons from the World Heritage ListCHAPTER TWO – THE WET TROPICS WORLDHERITAGE AREA: A CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES?In 1988, after more than a decade of political wrangling between the Queensland StateGovernment and the Australian Commonwealth Government, heated exchanges betweenconservationists and the pro-logging sector, and with varied Aboriginal opposition andsupport, the struggle to ‘secure’ (McDonald and Lane 2000) the wet tropical forests of NorthQueensland culminated in their listing as a World Heritage property at the Twelfth Session ofthe World Heritage Committee in Brasilia. This 894,420-hectare corridor of largelycontiguous rainforest, extending along the eastern zone of the Great Dividing Range fromCooktown to Townsville, was one of four properties nominated that year for their ‘outstandinguniversal [natural] value’. By the end of 1988, a decade after the first twelve sites wereinscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO 2005b), a total of 69 ‘natural’, 229 ‘cultural’and 14 ‘mixed’ properties had been listed.Among the ‘natural’ properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, the Wet Tropics is oftenheld up as unique in meeting all four of the natural heritage criteria identified in theOperational Guidelines for the Convention 6 as part of its assessment as a property with‘outstanding universal value’. As such, the region is listed for the following values:criterion (i): “it contains one of the most complete and diverse living records ofthe major stages in the evolution of land plants […] as well as one of the mostimportant living records of the history of marsupials and songbirds”;criterion (ii): it “provides outstanding examples of significant ongoing ecologicalprocesses and biological evolution including exceptionally high levels ofspecies diversity and endemism reflecting long-isolated ancient biota”;criterion (iii): it “has outstanding features of natural beauty and magnificentsweeping landscapes”; andcriterion (iv): it “provides important habitats for the in situ conservation ofbiological diversity, including the only habitat for numerous species of plantsand animals of conservation significance which have outstanding universalvalue from the point of view of science and conservation”(http://www.deh.gov.au/heritage/worldheritage/sites/wettropics/values.html).6 In 1988, the natural heritage criteria identified in the Operational Guidelines for the Convention weredefined as:Criterion (i): outstanding examples representing the major stages of the earth’s evolutionary history;Criterion (ii): outstanding examples representing significant ongoing geological processes, biologicalevolution and man’s interaction with his natural environment […];Criterion (iii): contain superlative natural phenomena, formations or features, for instance,outstanding examples of the most important ecosystems, areas of exceptional natural beauty orexceptional combinations of natural and cultural elements; andCriterion (iv): contain the most important and significant natural habitats where threatened species ofanimals or plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation stillsurvive (Operational Guidelines 1988, http://whc.unesco.org/archive/opguide88.pdf).Since 1988, revision of the Operational Guidelines has resulted in minor changes to criterion (i), (ii)and (iii). For example, since 1996, criterion (iii) [now criterion (vii)] has included a reference to the‘aesthetic importance’ of a nominated property (World Heritage Committee 1996: 13).5