Bunya Mountains is a national park in the South Burnett Region and Toowoomba Region in Queensland, Australia. The Bunya Mountains held a unique significance as the largest pan-tribal gathering place in eastern Australia, making them one of the most important cultural landscapes on the continent alongside Uluru.
Geography
The park includes much of the mountain range called the Bunya Mountains. The park encompasses the most westerly area of subtropical rainforest in southern Queensland and the largest population of bunya pines remaining in the world. The Bunya grasslands are unique relics of a much cooler climate and have existed since the last ice age, persisting due to regular burning by Aboriginal peoples over many thousands of years known as "fire farming". Recent core samples confirmed that Indigenous fire management was occurring on the Bunya Mountains as far back as 9,000 years ago during the Holocene era. Evidence suggests fire farming created the largest estate management in the world of the vast state and territories of Australia, performed in ceremonies, for land control, food control and farming, and produce (native yams) harvesting by Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Fire management has enabled the grasslands to maintain their treeless characteristic, preventing rainforest and woodland species from becoming established. The balds are considered a cultural landscape and an enduring symbol of Indigenous land management which still hold significance to Indigenous people today. and the Aboriginal people were pushed out. European settlers began to visit the area and enjoy the scenery in the same decade.
The Bunya Sawmill opened in 1883. Timber was still removed from the national park until about 1917.
The first walking tracks were constructed in 1939. Grass trees on Mount Kiangarow grow nearly 5 m tall and some are least several hundred years old. The Bunya Mountains support the most westerly populations of many rainforest dwelling species, including green catbirds, regent bowerbirds, paradise riflebirds, eastern whipbirds, noisy pittas and the Australian logrunner. Some of the more commonly seen species include pied currawongs, laughing kookaburras, Australian king parrots, crimson rosellas, sulphur-crested cockatoos, red-browed finches, white-browed scrubwrens, satin bowerbirds, wonga pigeons and brush turkeys. There has been an integrated program of burning the unique grassland balds by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service in the Bunya Mountains since the late 1990s with 27% of unburnt balds being burnt for the first time in many years. There have been difficulties in recovering a number of balds which have well established forest canopies due to decades of non-burning, these balds may be too far gone to recover. Some balds which have had significant forest species invasion have had mechanical removal and coppicing of trees to aid recovery of the balds through burning. Proactive fire management is a priority within the current management plan for the Bunya Mountains National Park with additional importance given to partnerships with traditional owners using traditional fire techniques in restoring and maintaining the grasslands. Australian Government initiatives such as the ‘Working on Country’ Program has been active on the mountain since 2009 allowing greater conservation action through additional rangers and resources being used to enable recovery of this unique threatened grassland landscape.
Facilities
There is a visitor information centre and campgrounds at Dandabah.