Australia's Blue Mountains join list of world treasures
Copyright 2000 Agence France Presse
November 30, 2000, Thursday
SYDNEY, Nov 30 - The Blue Mountains have joined the ranks of the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon by becoming Australia's 14th natural wonder to gain World Heritage recognition.
The World Heritage Committee meeting in Cairns Wednesday unanimously supported the addition of the million hectares (2.47 million acres) of spectacular forest range to the World Heritage List.
The Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney, now share the same status as international icons including the Great Barrier Reef, The Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon in the United States.
It makes Sydney the only major city in the world to have such a large, internationally-protected wilderness as a neighbour.
The 21-nation World Heritage Committee said the mountains contain 91 eucalypt species -- 13 percent of all eucalypts -- and 132 plant species found nowhere else on the planet.
Many rare species were left over from Gondwanan times 65 million years ago, incluing the Wollomi pine, a tree thought extinct for two million years and rediscovered four years ago in the Blue Mountains.
The mountains were described as a living biological laboratory.
The Blue Mountains get their name from the blue haze formed by sunlight shining through vapour released by eucalypts.
The plateau, dissected into valleys and gorges, proved an impenetrable barrier to European settlers until 1813.
Now half a million tourists go bush walking in the mountains every year.