A vast coastal biosphere in Queensland protecting the world's largest sand island and Ramsar-listed wetlands.
Great Sandy Biosphere Reserve
The Great Sandy Biosphere Reserve is a large protected-area designation in the Australian state of Queensland, covering a combined landscape of coastal waters, sandy landforms, wetlands, and rainforest on one of the most distinctive shorelines in the world. It incorporates Fraser Island (also known as K'Gari and Gari), the largest sand island on Earth, along with the Great Sandy Strait, a Ramsar-listed wetland that connects the island to the mainland. The reserve lies within the Southeast Queensland Bioregion and spans the local government areas of the Fraser Coast Region and the Gympie Region, with the sheltered waters of Hervey Bay to the east.
Established in 2009, the reserve is administered by a partnership of regional, state, and local bodies, including the Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management, the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, and the two relevant local government areas. In 2016, UNESCO described the reserve as a place of outstanding cultural and ecological significance, recognizing its rare combination of shifting sand masses, estuarine systems, dune forests, and freshwater lakes.
The biosphere sits within a much older landscape framework. The broader Great Sandy region, including the Cooloola sandmass, has been the subject of conservation attention since 1977, and the modern reserve brings together Fraser Island's World Heritage coastal environment with the productive wetland ecosystems of the strait. The result is a biosphere that bridges marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats across more than twelve thousand square kilometres.
