Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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Natural and cultural properties that are considered to be of ‘outstanding universal value’ and that meet the criteria of the World Heritage Convention may be entered on the World Heritage List. The list is compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee. Signatories to the Convention (such as Australia) undertake to identify, protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations the properties entered on the World Heritage List.

There are two World Heritage properties in Tasmania: the Tasmanian Wilderness and Macquarie Island.

THE TASMANIAN WILDERNESS

• listed in 1982
• covers 1.38 million hectares (approximately 20% of Tasmania)
• features a diverse array of both natural and cultural features of global significance, e.g. pristine habitats for plants and animals that are found nowhere else in the world and the most significant and extensive glacially modified landscapes in Australia.

• listed in 1997
• a site of major geoconservation significance, being the only place on earth where rocks from the earth's mantle (6 km below the ocean floor) are being actively exposed above sea-level.

• Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service at http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/macquarie/index.html
• UNESCO at http://www.unesco.org/whc/sites/629.htm