Rainforests on the World Heritage List: Discovering the Planet’s Great Forests

Rainforests are among the richest and most complex ecosystems on Earth. From the immense forests of Amazonia and the Congo Basin to the ancient rainforests of Southeast Asia and the temperate forests of Australia and New Zealand, these landscapes support extraordinary biodiversity and preserve some of the planet's most important ecological processes.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites provide a remarkable window into this global diversity. They protect forests ranging from lowland tropical wilderness and riverine ecosystems to mountain cloud forests, island rainforests and cool temperate forests. Together, these properties show that rainforest is not a single ecological type, but a global family of environments shaped by climate, elevation, geology, isolation and evolutionary history.

How UNESCO Recognizes Rainforests

The World Heritage rainforests illustrate four different dimensions of natural heritage. Some are valued for the beauty and drama of their landscapes, where forests meet mountains, rivers, waterfalls and other spectacular natural features (Criterion vii). Others are important for the geological history they reveal, from ancient mountains and limestone formations to vast cave systems (Criterion viii).

For many rainforest properties, however, the most fundamental values lie in the processes and diversity of life within the forest. Criterion (ix) recognizes ecosystems that demonstrate important ongoing ecological and biological processes, including the development of forests, the movement of rivers and the interaction of different habitats. Criterion (x) focuses on biodiversity, particularly habitats that are essential for threatened and endemic species.

Together, these criteria reflect the extraordinary range of values found in rainforest landscapes. A World Heritage rainforest may be significant because of its scenery or geology, its ecological processes or its biodiversity—and often because several of these qualities occur together.

The Great Tropical Rainforests

The world's great equatorial rainforest regions contain some of the most extensive and biologically diverse landscapes on the World Heritage List.

In South America, the Central Amazon Conservation Complex protects vast areas of rainforest together with rivers, floodplains, lakes and wetlands. Manú National Park encompasses an exceptional altitudinal range, from Amazonian lowlands to Andean forests, while Central Suriname Nature Reserve protects extensive rainforest within the ancient landscapes of the Guiana Shield.

Further north, Darién National Park and Los Katíos National Park protect important forests at the meeting point of Central and South America. The mountainous forests of Talamanca Range-La Amistad Reserves / La Amistad National Park demonstrate how elevation creates extraordinary ecological diversity.

The Atlantic Forest of Brazil represents a different rainforest story. Once covering much of the country's eastern seaboard, it is now highly fragmented, yet its remaining forests remain exceptionally rich in species. Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves and Atlantic Forest South-East Reserves protect important remnants, while Paraty and Ilha Grande – Culture and Biodiversity demonstrates how rainforest can form part of a broader cultural and coastal landscape.

Africa's Great Forests

The Congo Basin contains one of the world's largest remaining expanses of tropical rainforest. World Heritage properties including Salonga National Park, Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Dja Faunal Reserve and Sangha Trinational protect different expressions of this vast ecosystem.

Further east, Virunga National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park illustrate the extraordinary biodiversity of mountain forests. In Gabon, Ivindo National Park combines rainforest with rivers and waterfalls.

West Africa preserves a smaller but highly significant remnant of the Upper Guinean forests. Taï National Park, Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve and the recently inscribed Gola-Tiwai Complex protect some of the region's most important remaining forest landscapes.

Together, these sites demonstrate the importance of maintaining large, connected ecosystems in which forests, rivers, wetlands and wildlife populations remain part of functioning ecological systems.

The Rainforests of Asia

Asia's rainforest heritage stretches from the Indian subcontinent through mainland Southeast Asia to the islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan.

The Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra protects a vast mountain forest landscape containing lowland, montane and alpine environments. In Malaysia, Gunung Mulu National Park demonstrates the extraordinary relationship between rainforest and limestone karst, while Kinabalu Park protects forests along the slopes of Mount Kinabalu.

Across mainland Southeast Asia, Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuaries and Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex protect extensive forest landscapes. Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park and Hin Nam No National Park combine tropical rainforest with one of the world's great limestone karst landscapes.

Farther east, Yakushima and the Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, Northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island property demonstrate the distinctive character of Japan's humid island forests and their high levels of endemism.

Islands and Mountain Forests

Isolation has given many island rainforests distinctive evolutionary histories. Ujung Kulon, East Rennell, Coiba National Park and its Special Zone of Marine Protection, Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park and K’gari (Fraser Island) each demonstrate different relationships between rainforest, geology, climate and surrounding marine or coastal environments.

Mountains create another dimension of rainforest diversity. The Western Ghats, Sangay National Park, Río Abiseo National Park, Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Lorentz National Park all contain strong ecological gradients in which forests change rapidly with elevation.

These landscapes demonstrate why protecting ecological gradients can be as important as protecting individual forest habitats. Lowland forests, mountain forests, rivers and high-elevation ecosystems can function together as interconnected systems.

Rainforest and Human Heritage

Rainforests are also cultural landscapes. For thousands of years, people have lived in, travelled through and attached spiritual and cultural meaning to forest environments.

At Tikal National Park and Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque, monumental Maya cities survive within tropical forest landscapes. At Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, forest and Yoruba spirituality are inseparable. The forested mountains of the Kii Mountain Range have shaped centuries of religious traditions and pilgrimage, while Chiribiquete National Park – “The Maloca of the Jaguar” preserves an extraordinary combination of rainforest, rock art and Indigenous cultural heritage.

These places show that the distinction between natural and cultural heritage is not always clear-cut. In many landscapes, biological and human histories have developed together.

Temperate Rainforests

Rainforest is not synonymous with the tropics. Cool, wet climates also sustain ancient and highly distinctive rainforest ecosystems.

Australia's Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, Tasmanian Wilderness and Wet Tropics of Queensland represent different expressions of the country's forest heritage. Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand contains extensive temperate rainforest within a landscape of mountains, glaciers and lakes.

In North America, Redwood National and State Parks and Olympic National Park protect iconic temperate rainforests, while Los Alerces National Park represents the Valdivian temperate rainforest of Patagonia.

These forests demonstrate that rainforest can develop under very different climatic conditions. What unites them is persistent moisture and the ecological processes that sustain dense, complex forest communities.

A Global Heritage of Forests

From the Amazon and Congo to Southeast Asia, Pacific islands and the temperate forests of the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, World Heritage rainforests represent an extraordinary variety of landscapes.

Some are immense wildernesses; others are surviving fragments of once much larger forests. Some are valued principally for biodiversity, while others combine forests with spectacular geology, archaeological remains, sacred traditions or marine ecosystems.

Together, they show that the world's rainforests are not a single type of landscape, but a global collection of ecosystems shaped by climate, geography, geology, evolution and human history.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Rainforests

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