Mr Wettenhall, who locally launched the website www.birdingtropicalaustralia.com.au at a popular bird-watching site in Centenary Lakes, said the website was funded through Tourism Queensland, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and Townsville Enterprise Limited.

To compliment the website, a cluster of nine North Queensland businesses produced a brochure that covers the Cairns region (including The Daintree, Cairns Highlands and Mission Beach), titled "Bird Trails Tropical Queensland" - aimed at travelling birdwatchers and tourism information centres.

The cluster, which is dedicated to sustainable bird watching tourism and the conservation of birds, was formed in January to further promote their accommodation, tours and guiding services to both the domestic and overseas market.

"With more than 600 of Australia's 825 species of birds found in Queensland, we are the bird capital of Australia, "Mr Wettenhall said.

"There are some 46 million birdwatchers in the United States, contributing around $34 billion to the economy.

"While Australia's market is obviously much smaller, bird tourism (Avitourism) has good growth potential here for both domestic and international visitors. Ecotourism is increasingly popular and bird watching is a big part of it.

"It could represent some great employment opportunities in our regions and Indigenous communities - and may provide a real boost for tourism numbers."

Mr Wettenhall said Tropical North Queensland was one of Australia's premier bird watching tourism destinations.

"Of all the visitors to Tropical North Queensland each year, a significant proportion do engage in bird watching.

"The Wet Tropics Word Heritage Area is the jewel in the crown, with over 450 different types of birds, including the southern cassowary, bowerbirds, birds of paradise and kingfishers.

"Meanwhile, Cape York is the only place in Australia you can see 18 different types of bird that travel from New Guinea to Queensland - like species of brolga and waders.

"The Great Barrier Reef is also host to breeding colonies of terns, noddies, boobies and frigate birds. Elsewhere our birdlife thrives - from the outback, to Fraser Island and the rainforests of South-East Queensland.

"Now we are about to capitalise on these natural assets and attract more bird watchers to Queensland."

Mr Wettenhall said key members from the bird watching industry, including Birds Australia, Australia's oldest conservation organisation, have been significantly involved in the development of the project."

"It supports four areas of opportunities for the development and expansion of the industry - promotion, bird watching events, a collaborative approach and the establishment of new bird watching locations."

Mr Wettenhall said bird watching fitted well within Tourism Queensland's Global Brand Strategy theme of "Natural Encounters" which included bird watching pages on the Queensland Holidays website.

"Of course, promoting bird watching to tourists is a great idea, but our Government is also aware of the importance of protecting the natural habitat of our birdlife.

"We have committed to developing a biodiversity strategy for Queensland. Our biodiversity faces pressures from development and an expanding population; increased grazing pressures; altered fire regimes; competition from introduced pest and animal species; and now, the emerging impacts of climate change.

"A whole-of-landscape approach will focus not only on building Queensland's protected areas - reflecting the government's Towards Q2 target to expand national parks to 7.5 per cent of the state's area by 2020 - but also on developing biodiversity ‘corridors' for wildlife movement".

The Queensland Government's Back on Track Species Prioritisation Framework was working with key stakeholders to increase awareness, and identify threats to a range of species and how to address them.

"Twenty-five species of birds have been identified as being in trouble and ‘Recovery Plans' for seven Queensland species have been adopted under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999."

"These include the southern cassowary which is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, road kill and dog attacks - as well as the golden-shouldered parrot which is vulnerable to altered fire patterns and intense grazing by cattle and pigs.

For further information about the bird tourism cluster - please contact Dell Richards - 4094 1199.