Abstract
Kakadu National Park in northern Australia is a mixed World Heritage site, inscribed in the list of sites of humankind outstanding values by its cultural and natural characteristics. It is the largest national park in Australia and one of the largest in the world’s tropics. It is characterized by the presence of extensive areas of savanna woodlands, open forest, floodplains, coastal areas, islands, mangroves, tidal mudflats, and monsoon forests. It has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 40,000 years, providing a window into human civilization in the days before the last ice age. The hunting-and-gathering tradition illustrated in the art and archaeological record continues today. The park also has a huge diversity of flora and is one of the least impacted areas of Australia. It is a unique archaeological and ethnological reserve covering almost the entire catchment of a major tropical monsoonal river system.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Banfai DS, Bowman DMJS (2006) Forty years of lowland monsoon rainforest expansion in Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia. Biol Conserv 131(4):553–565
Bowman DMJS, Brown JK, Braby MF, Brown JR, Cook LG, Crisp MD (2010a) Biogeography of the Australian moonson tropics. J Biogeogr 37:201–216
Bowman DMJS, Prior LD, De Little SC (2010b) Retreating Melaleuca swamp forests in Kakadu National Park: Evidence of synergistic effects of climate change and past feral buffalo impacts. Austral Ecol 35(8):898–905
Cowie ID, Werner PA (1993) Alien plant species invasive in Kakadu National Park, tropical Northern Australia. Biol Conserv 63(2):127–135
Gill AM, Ryan PG, Moore PHR, Gibson M (2000) Fire regimes of World Heritage Kakadu National Park, Australia. Austral Ecol 25(6):616–625
McGregor S, Lawson V, Christophersen P, Kennett R, Boyden J, Bayliss P, Liedloff A, McKaige B, Andersen AN (2010) Indigenous wetland burning: conserving natural and cultural resources in Australia world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. Hum Ecol 38(6):721–729
Osipova E, Shadie P, Zwahlen C, Osti M, Shi Y, Kormos C, Bertzky B, Murai M, Van Merm R, Badman T (2017) IUCN world heritage outlook 2: a conservation assessment of all natural world heritage sites. IUCN, Gland
Parks Australia (2006) Kakadu National Park. https://parksautralia.gov.au/kakadu? Accessed 20 June 2016
Schooler SS, Salau B, Julien MH, Ives AR (2011) Alternative stable states explain unpredictable biological control of Salvinia molesta in Kakadu National Park. Nature 470:86–90
Townsend SA, Douglas MM (2004) The effect of a wildfire on stream water quality and catchment water yield in a tropical savanna excluded from fire for 10 years (Kakadu National Park, North Australia). Water Res 38(13):3051–3058
UNEP/WCMC (United Nations Environmental Programme/World Conservation Monitoring Centre) (2005) Kakadu National Park Northern Territory, Australia. Report, Cambridge, England
UNESCO WHC (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Centre) (2016) http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/147. Accessed 20 June 2016
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Claudino-Sales, V. (2019). Kakadu National Park, Australia. In: Coastal World Heritage Sites. Coastal Research Library, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1528-5_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1528-5_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-1526-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-1528-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)