Dunwich is the largest and has most of the island's services including a school, medical centre, local museum and the University of Queensland's Moreton Bay Research Station.

North Stradbroke Island has over 100 freshwater lakes and wetlands and contains significant groundwater resources which are accessed by local communities and a sand mining company, Sibelco [] Australia.

It is unusual for its size and dimensions (very long and narrow), covering 30 square kilometres (12 sq mi) and is considered to be very young (500–6,000 years) compared with similar swamps.

The Eighteen Mile Swamp is home to many endangered, rare species, including the vulnerable Cryptocarya foetida whose habitat is the notophyll vine forest found at the foot and lower slope of parabolic high dunes on the west of the wetland.

This migration has buried earlier positions of the west coast escarpment to form complex hydrological systems with the ancient dunes (estimated at up to 300,000 years old).

Myora Springs is known to be essential habitat for the vulnerable water mouse (Xeromys myoides) and the endangered swamp orchid (Phaius australis).

Amity swamp suffered, in 1991, when up to 100,000 litres of diesel spilled from the sand mining company, Consolidated Rutile Limited [CRL].

Flinders Swamp and its drainage lines is home to the rare acid frog (Litotia cooloolensis) and the area includes habitats for relict populations of the burrowing skink (Anomalopus truncatus).

This story gives rise to a local legend that the remains of a Spanish or Portuguese shipwreck known as the Stradbroke Island Galleon exist somewhere in the 18 Mile Swamp.

Their experiences prompted interest in the Moreton Bay area and in 1827 Governor Ralph Darling came from Sydney aboard HMS Rainbow, giving the names Stradbroke Island and Dunwich in honour of the commander of the ship, Captain Henry John Rous, whose family held the titles Earl of Stradbroke and Viscount Dunwich.

[38] In September 1894, heavy seas drove aground the barque Cambus Wallace at a narrow isthmus roughly halfway down the island's length.

[39] North Stradbroke Island's most famous local was Oodgeroo Noonuccal, formerly known as Kath Walker, the Aboriginal poet and native-rights campaigner.

She was one of the prime movers of the movement that led to the 1997 landmark agreement between the local government council and the Aboriginal people of the area that claimed rights over the island and parts of Moreton Bay.

[40] In July 2011, the Quandamooka people of North Stradbroke Island won a 16-year-long battle to have their Native Title claim recognised.

[41] The Federal Court determinations outline native title rights and interest over land and waters on and around North Stradbroke Island.

Iluka Resources remains the overseas selling agent for mineral sands from Sibelco Australia's Enterprise and Yarraman mines.

The dredge is continually moving, leaving the tailings sand, so, although the mined dunes are revegetated and stabilised, the original ecology of the Island cannot be replaced.

[47] It operated in close proximity to the Eighteen Mile Swamp along a migrating dredge path with a buffer zone from the wetlands prescribed by the Queensland Government.

Conservationists have expressed concern that these buffer zones, the smallest of which is 25 metres (82 ft), are inadequate to protect the Ramsar-listed wetlands from pollution and will fail to protect the waterways, citing evidence from the 1976 inquiry into sandmining on Fraser Island which found even 500-metre (1,600 ft) buffer between areas mined and wetlands was "totally inadequate".

[49] The international market for Australian mineral sands, sold through Iluka resources, was mainly China, where 80% of exports are used as pigment in paints.

[50] A 2010 KPMG assessment, commissioned by Sibelco Australia, found 95% of revenue from NSI sand mining stayed in the Australian community.

[54][55] Sibelco appealed, on technical grounds, the Magistrate's decision that it had a case to answer on the criminal charges for the illegal selling of sand.

In another legal matter, the High Court of Australia ruled against Sibelco in June 2011 over a bid to sell sand to construction companies.

[60] Conservationists campaigned with the simple message that 2027 was, in fact, the forecast date for the exhaustion of the mineral deposits on NSI as already anticipated by the Enterprise and Yarraman mine operators, citing details from CRL's letter of 13 May 2009 to the Australian Securities Exchange [ASIX] that mineral sand mining as an economic force on the island would end by 2027.

Conservationists foresaw there existed a strong argument that further mining would have been totally inappropriate, given regard for future and continuing land uses and therefore the lease ML1117 could not be renewed under the Mineral Resources Act.

[63] These parties had publicly flagged they would certainly use that right, given the good prospects of overturning the lease renewal decision upon judicial review, and bringing about the cessation of sand mining on the island around 2014.

[68][69] The State Government planned to develop tourism opportunities by creating new walking tracks, camping grounds and recreational facilities.

[71][65] In January 2012, then state opposition LNP leader Campbell Newman announced that if elected his party would restore rights around mining leases to what they were [prior to the NSI Act passed in April 2011][72] and Sibelco Australia supported his electoral campaign by posting letters to voters by "mine supporters" without required disclosure, urging a vote for Campbell Newman.

[76] On 6 June 2014 the Quandamooka people initiated a legal challenge, saying that the LNP Government's extension of mining contravened the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwth).

[65] A statement of intent was signed on 20 February 2019 by Sibelco Australia, the Queensland government and the Quandamooka people, by which the three sand mines would be rehabilitated.