Gondwana Canoe Hire
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The Barmah Forest consists of the section of the Murray River floodplain within Victoria (i.e. south of the main river channel) between the downstream end of the Ulupna Island and Barmah Township.
The area includes the Barmah State Park, which was proclaimed in 1987, and the Barmah State Forest. It is an area of River Red Gum Eucalyptus camaldulensis forest, subject to periodic inundation.
The forest features a variety of permanent and temporary wetlands, including lakes, swamps, lagoons and flooded forest. These wetlands provide habitat for a large number of bird species.
World Heritage Listed Wetlands.
The convention on wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the frame work for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.
There are presently 154 contracting parties to the convention, with 1650 wetland sites, totaling 149.6 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance.
The Barmah Wetlands were included on 15th December 1982.
The meaning of Gondwana.
GONDWANA, the super continent within which the present Australia, Africa, Antartica, South America, India and Arabia were once joined.
The name means "land of the Gonds" and comes from the region of that name in India where fossils were found similar to those of the southern continents.
The Australian continent was separated form the other parts of Gondwana about 50,000,000 years ago and gradually moved north.
The distinctiveness of Australia's flora and fauna derives largely from the fact of separation at a particular stage in the development of plant and animal life.
