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The Gondwana Rainforest

Covering just 4,050 square miles (10,500 sq km) of the northeastern state of Queensland, Australia’s Gondwana rainforest is relatively small. Even so, it contains many ancient plants found nowhere else on earth. They include huge, slow-growing kauri pines, some of them more than 1,000 years old, and the vine-like magnolia known as Austrobaileya scandens , thought to be the world’s oldest surviving flowering plant species. The forest also shelters a unique community of animals, including mar- supials such as tree kangaroos, forest wallabies, possums, bandicoots, cus- cuses and quolls. In the past, some of the area was cleared by ranchers, farmers and loggers, but since 1988 most of the surviving forest has been protected as a World Heritage Site.

The Gondwana rainforests are located in Lamington National Park, Queensland.

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Rainforests