The story of this place
Lamington National Park in southeast Queensland preserves the world's largest remaining subtropical rainforest — part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area that dates back 180 million years to when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. The park's canopy walks thread through ancient Antarctic beech trees (Nothofagus) that are the southernmost survivors of a forest type that once covered the entire southern hemisphere.
The park was championed by Romeo Lahey, a timber-getter who saw what he was destroying and changed sides. He spent 14 years lobbying the Queensland government before it gazetted the park in 1915. Today it harbours 20% of Australia's bird species within its 206 square kilometres, including the rare Albert's lyrebird — a species that cannot fly and survives only in this southern rainforest. The lyrebird's ability to mimic any sound — chainsaws, camera shutters, other bird calls — was filmed by David Attenborough in the BBC's Life of Birds and became one of natural history television's most watched moments.