Kuranda is situated on the eastern boundary of Mareeba Shire, a very large shire extending far inland and abutting southern Cape York peninsula. Mareeba, the main population centre, contains about half the population of the shire. The area was originally settled by miners seeking gold, found along a number of streams well inland from the coast, but mining towns such as Thornborough have been long abandoned. Cattle followed, then with the construction of the Tinaroo Dam irrigation water supported a lucrative tobacco industry, which collapsed at the end of the twentieth century when Governments no longer legislated for local tobacco content in cigarettes. Now crops such as mangoes, coffee and lychees, and a new sugar industry, have taken the place of tobacco.

Kuranda has long been a tourist destination, since the construction of the railway about 1900 provided access from Cairns. It is situated on the range above Cairns, its altitude providing a cooler climate than on the coast. It has become a major tourist destination, the terminus of the Cairns-Kuranda scenic railway and the Skyrail cableway, one of the longest in the world. Up to a million visitors come to Kuranda each year. During the 1970's Kuranda had a strong countercultural bias, with communes springing up in the area. Kuranda has suffered the fate of other tourist destinations in otherwise rural areas - with a population of 4-5,000 people it provides almost half the rates revenue of the shire, but due to the way councillors are elected, it has not been able to elect one councillor in recent years. Mareeba retains a frontier type mentality, often at odds with the more cosmopilitan views of Kuranda residents. This difference is often marked when environmental issues arise.

Kuranda Envirocare is the largest environment group in Mareeba Shire, and has sought to protect the rich environmental values of the Kuranda area from increasing development pressures. Fragmentation of habitat and lack of connectivity caused by poor planning are the major cause of environmental harm in the area. The introduction of domestic pets and weeds into the rainforest environment causes serious harm to wildlife and vegetation alike. Since Councils are given great liberty to create their own policies in Queensland, even under the Integrated Planning Act that is supposed to make sustainability the key to all decison making, Kuranda Envirocare has spent much effort in seeking to influence Mareeba Shire's planning scheme, often with limited success.

Mareeba Shire Council has recently announced a review of its planning scheme, to occur in 2007. It is not known why this is occurring some years before it is expected or required. Kuranda Envirocare may again find itself almost the only voice in Mareeba Shire seeking good environmental outcomes from this review. Even so, to have even part of our submission included in the planning scheme can save more trees than could be planted in many years. Pressure by Kuranda Envirocare to include maps of wildlife corridors in the most recent planning scheme was successful, with many square kilometers of important linkages included in the mapped corridors.