The area includes vast tracts of jarrah, red tingle and karri forests surrounding granite peaks, rivers, heathlands, and wetlands.

The planning area, together with the Shannon and D'Entrecasteaux National Parks, provide a contiguous conservation reserve system stretching from near Augusta in the west to Denmark in the east.

[1] During the height of the old growth logging debate, the Walpole Wilderness proposal sought to realise the region's potential for nature conservation by proposing the creation of a Regional Wilderness Park which expanded and linked existing parks and reserves into a single integrated conservation reserve.

[3] The Walpole Wilderness area was adopted by the Western Australian Labor government by Premier Geoff Gallop on 22 April 2001.

[4] These areas have long been recognised for their unique natural, cultural, scenic and landscape values, in particular the rich array of endemic and nationally significant flora and fauna.