Queensland
Queensland’s bioregions
Bioregions are relatively large land areas with distinct geographic, climatic and natural features and environmental processes. Taking a bioregional approach, we can work with natural cycles across vast geographies to protect Queensland's biodiversity.
In this section, you will find details about remnant (native) vegetation and the 16 broad vegetation groups in Queensland’s 13 bioregions, providing an overview of vegetation communities and allowing comparison with other areas.
In 2021, Queensland’s remnant vegetation extent covered 79.97% of the state, with 10.2% of this vegetation within protected areas. Remnant vegetation includes a range of ecosystems including forests, woodlands, shrublands, heathlands, grassland and herbaceous vegetation types.
About half of the protected areas are in:
- Cape York Peninsula bioregion (26.4%)
- Channel Country (22.3%).
The 11 other bioregions contain the remainder, unevenly, from the Brigalow Belt (8.6%) to the New England Tableland (0.2%).
Remnant vegetation in protected areas
The percentage of each bioregion’s remnant vegetation in protected areas varies, with only six bioregions exceeding 10%:
- Wet Tropics (65%)
- Southeast Queensland (32.1%)
- Cape York Peninsula (30.8%)
- Central Queensland Coast (19.8%)
- Channel Country (13.6%)
- New England Tableland (11.6%).
Broad vegetation groups
The representation of broad vegetation groups (BVGs) 1:5 million scale within protected areas varies widely. Eight BVGs at the 1:5 million scale have above 10% representation in protected areas across the state.
In 2021, these BVGs had the highest percentage of their remnant areas in protected areas:
- Wet eucalypt open forests (BVG 2) 61%
- Rainforests and scrubs (BVG 1) 56.2%.
The extent of other BVGs within protected areas varies to as low as 3.4% for BVG 13 ‘Tussock grassland, forblands’.
We review all data with each Regional Ecosystem (RE) mapping release. Therefore, the data is not directly comparable with previous State of the Environment Reports.
