Great Eastern Ranges
Nature & People
Australia is the world’s oldest, lowest and flattest continent. On its eastern edge are 2 ancient mountainous features, the Great Escarpment of eastern Australia and Great Dividing Range, which extend 2,800 km north south for most of the eastern seaboard. A tableland of rolling hills and shallow valleys, varying greatly in width and elevation, extends between the Great Escarpment and the Great Dividing Range.
The Great Eastern Ranges corridor includes unfragmented natural ecosystems along extensive sections of these 2 great geomorphic structures. The New South Wales section is 1,200 km long.
The Great Escarpment of Eastern Australia
The Great Escarpment is in places a dissected plateau edge, extending from East Gippsland in Victoria to north of Cairns in Queensland. Typically separating the tablelands from the coast, it is occasionally prominent in form, rising abruptly from the coastal plains to over 1,000 m in many places. It can be obscure and, at some locations, absent. Rivers carve deep gorges as they plunge towards the narrow coastal plain and flow to the sea.
Human activity has altered Australian ecosystems since Aboriginal peope arrived, over 40,000 years ago. Aboriginal people used fire to modify habitats for hunting, and to clear trails through dense vegetation. However, the extent of change on Great Eastern Ranges ecosystems has increased dramatically in the 200 years since the non-Indigenous settlement of Australia began. Studies in the Australian Alps show a major change from rare fire events to highly frequent fires introduced during the grazing era.
The Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range is the mountainous watershed separating the coast from inland eastern Australia. It extends north-south for over 2,800 km, from southern Victoria to north of Cairns in far north Queensland. It ranges in elevation from a few hundred metres to 2,228 m, forming Australia’s highest mountain (Mount Kosciuszko) in southern NSW. Here it receives over 3 m of rain annually. In places it forms rugged mountains and in other areas it is barely distinguishable from the surrounding landscape.
The Great Dividing Range forms the watershed and headwaters for the major rivers in eastern Australia, directing runoff either towards the coast or inland. It is located to the west of the Great Escarpment and varies greatly in its proximity to it.
