A MIDA case study on the Great Sandy region of Australia, home to the world's largest sand island K'gari, where World Heritage, Ramsar and Biosphere Reserve designations combine with Butchulla custodianship to protect culture and ecology together.
Description
Declared a Biosphere Reserve in 2009 for its cultural ecological significance, the Great Sandy Biosphere Reserve spans vast sand-based forests including mangroves, eucalypts, riparian rainforest and dry rainforest across 96 regional ecosystems, where more than 2,000 plant species thrive. At its heart lies K'gari, a World Heritage Site since 1992 and the world's largest sand island, holding half of the world's perched lakes and the only place on earth where tall rainforests rise above 200 m on shifting sand dunes. The Aboriginal Butchulla people, traditional custodians of the land, lead conservation across K'gari, the Great Sandy Strait and nearby mainland areas, including habitat restoration and capacity-building programmes for locals. The Great Sandy Strait, a double-ended sand passage estuary fed by the Susan and Mary Rivers, coastal streams and the Cooloola Sand Mass, had its lower reaches designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Significance in 1999 for marine biodiversity including more than 1% of the world's red-capped plovers, great knots and curlews. The 2021 renaming of the World Heritage Site from Fraser Island to K'gari reflected recognition of traditional custodianship.
