Tourism affects the Daintree ecosystems in the state of Queensland
Daintree Rainforest
The Daintree is situated north of Cairns in tropical North Queensland. it is a UNESCO world heritage protected site, tourists visiting this part of FNQ are carefully guided through selected areas to minimize impact on this sensitive and precious environment. It is one of the world's oldest rainforests being over 135 million years old and is approximately 1200 square kilometers in size. The Daintree Rainforest supports over 3000 species of plant, including over one third of Australia's mammalian species species, with 13 of which are found no one else in the world.Over 400,000 people visit the Daintree Rainforest every year. Furthermore, the Daintree sits alongside the Great Barrier Reef and is the only place on Earth where two world heritage sites meet.
Tourism can bring both benefits and problems to an area, they can be used to develop local infrastructure and services but also help destroy local culture and traditions. The tourists can create employment opportunities for local people and bring well needed money into the economy as well as promote cultural awareness and can provide assistance in preserving local culture and traditions. If there is a place where it has beautiful and exotic sightseeing places to visit, it later on gets affected by tourists. This happens by the transportation methods people take and when tourists don’t take consideration and good care of the environment.
The Daintree Rainforest rains 120 days of rain per year, which is an average of 2013 mm of rain falling per year. The average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius, and most of the time the air varies between about 24 and 30 degrees. Wet season is from April to June. Summers are often hot and humid with the mean daily temperature in January around 28°C.
There are multiple abiotic factors involved in the Daintree. These include;
1- rocks,which create homes for animals and fauna,
2- soil, which provides a home for organisms and plants
3-weather, which offers sunlight, rain and wind to help with the plants and animals survival,
4-water is used for drinking meant for fauna
5-sunlight creates photosynthesis to ensure the plants survival
6- Climate creates warmth or cold weather to help animals survive
7- Air gives oxygen to all species
8- Boardwalks provide an area for people to admire the beautiful scenery, and provides a shelter for any animals and plants below.
survive.
In the Daintree Rainforest the natural food chain/web contains a variety of animals and plants included to create a consistent food chain. They are:
1. Black-tailed deer- (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus)
2. Pileated woodpecker- (Hylatomus pileatus)
3. Flying Squirrel- (Pteromyini)
4. Spotted owl- (Strix occidentalis)
5. Red tree mole- (Arborimus longicaudus)
6. Winter wren- (Troglodytes hiemalis)
7. Mountain Beaver-(Aplodontia rufa)
8. Douglas Fir- (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
9. Berries- (Cerbera floribunda)
10. Fern- (Adiantum pedatum)
11. Fungi- (Vombatus ursinus)
12. Carpenter ant- (Camponotus)
13. Acorn- (Quercus)
14. Aphid- (Aphidoidea)
15. Caterpillar- (Larva)
The impact of tourism has been affecting the ecosystem by two different ways. The first impact is logging when loggers cut down trees to gain wood. This destroys animal's homes and certain animals would lose their food source. This would affect and destroy the food webs/chains. This is why certain organisms are becoming extinct. Another way of tourism affecting the Daintree is from farming and land clearing for housing, this is happening because as the number of people is constantly increasing more and more land area is needed to accommodate them all. In order to do that, people cut down trees causing deforestation and pollution in the area. When the big machines come to dig up the fertile ground they destroy plants and their fumes pollute the air. Animals and plants are dying, disrupting the natural flow of food chains and endangering the survival of native species.
Unless carefully controlled, the impact of tourism could permanently change the forest environment and upset its delicate balance. Creating tourist facilities might necessitate removal of trees, installing infrastructure for plumbing and changing the surface of the forest floor. The amount of sunlight, the temperature and the use of water would be altered by poorly controlled tourist development, which would have a strongly negative impact on the Rainforest.
The Daintree Discovery Centre has utilised the services of specialists to create a plan for the defense and repair of the Rainforest, so that human impact is minimised or counteracted. The plan resulted in carrying out many maintenance projects, such as building elevated walkways, open mesh boardwalks, eco-friendly buildings that use very little energy, rainwater tanks, using only natural cleaning products and recycling and removal of hard rubbish for treatment outside the Rainforest. There is also a tourist attraction located at the top of the Daintree named the Mossman Gorge. The control measures that have been taken note of from this attraction is to decrease the traffic reason being, before the development of the Mossman Gorge Centre it had a high amount of tourist traffic that would use the roads and would disrupt the land and polluting it. This was taken into consideration to create sustainability using a bus service that allows them to be taken to the Mossman Gorge and back.
The traditional indigenous owners of the Daintree Rainforest land are the Kuku Yalariji tribe. The Kuku Yalariji people's environment had been provided everything- spirituality, identity, social order, shelter, food and medicine. Aboriginal people also had an excellent economic system that involved trading of resources amongst different tribal groups. Different environment resources were used to create multiple good resources that were used. The aborigines used the Rainforest plants and trees to make numerous material goods such as wooden shields and swords to defend themselves against rival tribes, woven baskets for carrying goods and bark cloth as fish traps for their food. Their shelter were dome thatched huts, which could be easily built and then discarded if weather condition had been changed. For instance, if there was a sudden rainstorm threatening to raise river levels and flood a camp, the Kuku Yalariji people could gather together they could move to a more suitable place where the aboriginals would build a new camp quickly and simply. The Wet Tropics forests provide the food, medicine, artifacts and cultural places which keep Rainforest Aboriginal cultures alive and ever evolving.
The Daintree is situated north of Cairns in tropical North Queensland. it is a UNESCO world heritage protected site, tourists visiting this part of FNQ are carefully guided through selected areas to minimize impact on this sensitive and precious environment. It is one of the world's oldest rainforests being over 135 million years old and is approximately 1200 square kilometers in size. The Daintree Rainforest supports over 3000 species of plant, including over one third of Australia's mammalian species species, with 13 of which are found no one else in the world.Over 400,000 people visit the Daintree Rainforest every year. Furthermore, the Daintree sits alongside the Great Barrier Reef and is the only place on Earth where two world heritage sites meet.
Tourism can bring both benefits and problems to an area, they can be used to develop local infrastructure and services but also help destroy local culture and traditions. The tourists can create employment opportunities for local people and bring well needed money into the economy as well as promote cultural awareness and can provide assistance in preserving local culture and traditions. If there is a place where it has beautiful and exotic sightseeing places to visit, it later on gets affected by tourists. This happens by the transportation methods people take and when tourists don’t take consideration and good care of the environment.
The Daintree Rainforest rains 120 days of rain per year, which is an average of 2013 mm of rain falling per year. The average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius, and most of the time the air varies between about 24 and 30 degrees. Wet season is from April to June. Summers are often hot and humid with the mean daily temperature in January around 28°C.
There are multiple abiotic factors involved in the Daintree. These include;
1- rocks,which create homes for animals and fauna,
2- soil, which provides a home for organisms and plants
3-weather, which offers sunlight, rain and wind to help with the plants and animals survival,
4-water is used for drinking meant for fauna
5-sunlight creates photosynthesis to ensure the plants survival
6- Climate creates warmth or cold weather to help animals survive
7- Air gives oxygen to all species
8- Boardwalks provide an area for people to admire the beautiful scenery, and provides a shelter for any animals and plants below.
survive.
In the Daintree Rainforest the natural food chain/web contains a variety of animals and plants included to create a consistent food chain. They are:
1. Black-tailed deer- (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus)
2. Pileated woodpecker- (Hylatomus pileatus)
3. Flying Squirrel- (Pteromyini)
4. Spotted owl- (Strix occidentalis)
5. Red tree mole- (Arborimus longicaudus)
6. Winter wren- (Troglodytes hiemalis)
7. Mountain Beaver-(Aplodontia rufa)
8. Douglas Fir- (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
9. Berries- (Cerbera floribunda)
10. Fern- (Adiantum pedatum)
11. Fungi- (Vombatus ursinus)
12. Carpenter ant- (Camponotus)
13. Acorn- (Quercus)
14. Aphid- (Aphidoidea)
15. Caterpillar- (Larva)
The impact of tourism has been affecting the ecosystem by two different ways. The first impact is logging when loggers cut down trees to gain wood. This destroys animal's homes and certain animals would lose their food source. This would affect and destroy the food webs/chains. This is why certain organisms are becoming extinct. Another way of tourism affecting the Daintree is from farming and land clearing for housing, this is happening because as the number of people is constantly increasing more and more land area is needed to accommodate them all. In order to do that, people cut down trees causing deforestation and pollution in the area. When the big machines come to dig up the fertile ground they destroy plants and their fumes pollute the air. Animals and plants are dying, disrupting the natural flow of food chains and endangering the survival of native species.
Unless carefully controlled, the impact of tourism could permanently change the forest environment and upset its delicate balance. Creating tourist facilities might necessitate removal of trees, installing infrastructure for plumbing and changing the surface of the forest floor. The amount of sunlight, the temperature and the use of water would be altered by poorly controlled tourist development, which would have a strongly negative impact on the Rainforest.
The Daintree Discovery Centre has utilised the services of specialists to create a plan for the defense and repair of the Rainforest, so that human impact is minimised or counteracted. The plan resulted in carrying out many maintenance projects, such as building elevated walkways, open mesh boardwalks, eco-friendly buildings that use very little energy, rainwater tanks, using only natural cleaning products and recycling and removal of hard rubbish for treatment outside the Rainforest. There is also a tourist attraction located at the top of the Daintree named the Mossman Gorge. The control measures that have been taken note of from this attraction is to decrease the traffic reason being, before the development of the Mossman Gorge Centre it had a high amount of tourist traffic that would use the roads and would disrupt the land and polluting it. This was taken into consideration to create sustainability using a bus service that allows them to be taken to the Mossman Gorge and back.
The traditional indigenous owners of the Daintree Rainforest land are the Kuku Yalariji tribe. The Kuku Yalariji people's environment had been provided everything- spirituality, identity, social order, shelter, food and medicine. Aboriginal people also had an excellent economic system that involved trading of resources amongst different tribal groups. Different environment resources were used to create multiple good resources that were used. The aborigines used the Rainforest plants and trees to make numerous material goods such as wooden shields and swords to defend themselves against rival tribes, woven baskets for carrying goods and bark cloth as fish traps for their food. Their shelter were dome thatched huts, which could be easily built and then discarded if weather condition had been changed. For instance, if there was a sudden rainstorm threatening to raise river levels and flood a camp, the Kuku Yalariji people could gather together they could move to a more suitable place where the aboriginals would build a new camp quickly and simply. The Wet Tropics forests provide the food, medicine, artifacts and cultural places which keep Rainforest Aboriginal cultures alive and ever evolving.