World Heritage Sites of Australia
Visitors to Australia marvel when they see the places recognised by the United Nations as World Heritage. From the ancient, pristine temperate rainforests in the south to the massive escarpments and tropical wetlands in the north, they are dazzling in their ecological complexity and the record they offer of life on this planet and the human experience in Australia.
Peter Valentine presents Australia’s World Heritage sites in a magnificent tribute to natural and cultural history. The outstanding qualities of each site are described and illustrated in exquisite detail, along with an account of how the site came to be on the World Heritage List. Rainforests that show the connections of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. Rock art that points to a history of human settlement reaching over 60,000 years into the past. Sandstone remnants of eighty years of convict labour and imprisonment. A marvel of twentieth-century architecture. This is Australia’s world heritage.
A testament to his decades of involvement in World Heritage, Valentine includes in each chapter a reflection on his observations, involvement with or connection to each site, from a conversation with the late Kakadu Elder Bill Neidjie to diving on the Great Barrier Reef and developing safe protocols for swimming with the whale sharks at the Ningaloo Coast.
Peter Valentine is an adjunct professor at James Cook University, following an academic career in environmental management and conservation based in Townsville. He has been intensely involved in natural heritage across Australia and throughout the world for many decades, assisting with the evaluation of nominations; establishing a graduate university program in World Heritage management; participating in the management and evaluation of several World Heritage sites; serving terms as director and chair of the Wet Tropics Management Authority; and serving as a natural heritage expert on the Australian Heritage Council. Today, he lives with wife Valerie near Malanda in the Wet Tropics rainforest.
