Marine & Aquaculture

The Wet Tropics Management Authority promotes the existence, values, culture and nature of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in a number of ways locally and around the globe. By sharing information about the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, we aim to showcase the relevance and importance of the World Heritage Area to humanity and help visitors understand the value of this landscape.Mangroves are what we call the collection of salt tolerant plants that are found along coastal areas and up rivers in the tropics and subtropics. There are 34 species of mangroves in Queensland with a total of only 69 species worldwide.

An authoritative website on mangroves in Australia covering these topics: Distribution and Diversity; Adaptations; Reproduction; Ecology; Mangrove Animals; Benefits; Threats; Conservation.

THEY MAY NOT LOOK like (or smell) like much, but mangroves are a veritable treasure trove of species and an extremely important ecosystem.
About 75 per cent of commercial fish species hang out here for at least part of their lifecycle, rubbing shoulders with wide array of creatures from crabs and mudskippers to birds and rodents.
These intertidal forests also prevent erosion by stabilising sediment with their ‘breathing’ roots, and they also filter run-off from the land to keep the water clear for their more glamorous counterparts, such as coral reefs. They cover 11,500 sq. km of Australian coastline – the third largest area in the world – and are found almost everywhere but Tasmania.