[1] Collectively, the rainforests are a World Heritage Site with fifty separate reserves totalling 366,500 hectares (906,000 acres) from Newcastle to Brisbane.

[1] The World Heritage status of the region was created and negotiated initially in 1986, with the area extended in 1994, following a nomination which was prepared in 1992 by the Rainforest Conservation Society.

[7] The region was historically logged extremely heavily, to such an extent that only 1% of the original range of the Gondwana rainforest remains in Australia.

Among the devastated habitats are several locations that are significant for some critically imperiled species, such as the nightcap oak and the giant barred frog.

[10][11] The general claim of "never burned before" has been challenged by several commentators, based on an article in The Cairns Post on 25 October 1951 that reported a "fire has burnt out about 2000 acres of thick rainforest country" in the Lamington National Park.