The Wet tropics World Heritage region and the Great Barrier Reef area is the traditional homelands for the 18 traditional Aboriginal Rainforest groups from Cooktown in the North to Paluma north of Townsville and as far west to Mt Garnet.

The Wet Tropics region and the Great Barrier Reef, where Aboriginal Rainforest people have lived and survived for thousands of years, linking us to our ancestors through story lines, cultural practices, cultural significant sites, and cultural knowledge of the environment.

The Atherton Tablelands, surrounded by lush tropical rainforest, and known as the Cairns Highlands to some is home to several aboriginal Rainforest groups which are the Dyirrbalngan (Jirrbal), Ngadjanjii, and Yidinjii. These traditional rainforest groups have lived in harmony with the environment for thousands of years until European settlement on the tablelands around 1885.