An initiative from Planet Ark as part of the National Tree Day event, Tropical Tree Day is Sunday, December 7.
Coinciding with the beginning of the north’s ‘wet’ season Tropical Tree Day marks an ideal time for planting native seedlings.
Planet Ark is keen to raise awareness of, and to celebrate, tropical ecosystems and the groups working to protect them.
The tropical zone is located between the latitudes of 23.5°N (the Tropic of Cancer) and 23.5°S (the Tropic of Capricorn) and is characterised by a hot, humid and wet climate.
Australia’s tropical zone covers far north Queensland, the northern part of the Northern Territory and north of Broome in Western Australia. Although these regions are always hot, they have distinct ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ seasons – most rain occurs during the ‘wet’ season which occurs during what most Australians call summer.
Most of Australia’s tropical rainforests are found in far north Queensland, in what is known as the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. According to Planet Ark, the tropical rainforests of Australia’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area are home to more than one quarter of all Australian marsupial species, 58 per cent of all Australian bat species and 40 per cent of all Australian bird species. This is despite the Wet Tropics only comprising 0.2 per cent of Australia’s total land mass.
To learn more of Australia’s tropical rainforests, click here.
