Sri Lanka, formerly called Ceylon, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, southeast of the Indian subcontinent, in a strategic location near major sea lanes. The nation has a total area of 65,610 square kilometres (25,330 sq mi), with 64,630 square kilometres (24,950 sq mi) of land and 980 square kilometres (380 sq mi) of water. Its coastline is 1,340 kilometres (830 mi) long. The main island of Sri Lanka has an area of 65,268 km2; it is the twenty-fifth largest island in the world by area. Dozens of offshore islands account for the remaining 342 km2 area. The largest offshore island, Mannar Island, is linked to Adam's Bridge, a land connection to the Indian mainland, which is now mostly submerged with only a chain of limestone shoals remaining above sea level. According to temple records, this natural causeway was formerly whole, but was breached by a violent storm in 1480. The formation is also known as Rama's Bridge, as according to Hindu mythology, it was constructed during the rule of Lord Rama.
A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level, formally described in the International Cloud Atlas (2017) as silvagenitus. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which case they are also referred to as mossy forests. Mossy forests usually develop on the saddles of mountains, where moisture introduced by settling clouds is more effectively retained.
The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 165-year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of the Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honoured as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Botanic Gardens has been ranked Asia's top park attraction since 2013, by TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards. It was declared the inaugural Garden of the Year by the International Garden Tourism Awards in 2012.
Udawalawe National Park is a national park on the boundary of Sabaragamuwa and Uva Provinces in Sri Lanka. The park was created to provide a sanctuary for wild animals displaced by the construction of the Udawalawe Reservoir on the Walawe River, as well as to protect the catchment of the reservoir. The reserve covers 30,821 hectares (119.00 sq mi) of land area and was established on 30 June 1972.
Gampaha is an urban city in Gampaha District, Western Province, Sri Lanka. It is situated to the north-east of the capital Colombo. It is the sixth largest urban area in Western Province, after Colombo, Negombo, Kalutara, Panadura and Avissawella. Gampaha is also the second largest municipal centre in Gampaha district, after Negombo. Gampaha has a land area of 25.8 ha and is home to the offices of 75 government institutions.
The environment of Sri Lanka exhibits a remarkable biodiversity.
The Sri Lankan elephant is native to Sri Lanka and one of three recognised subspecies of the Asian elephant. It is the type subspecies of the Asian elephant and was first described by Carl Linnaeus under the binomial Elephas maximus in 1758. The Sri Lankan elephant population is now largely restricted to the dry zone in the north, east and southeast of Sri Lanka. Elephants are present in Udawalawe National Park, Yala National Park, Lunugamvehera National Park, Wilpattu National Park and Minneriya National Park but also live outside protected areas. It is estimated that Sri Lanka has the highest density of elephants in Asia. Human-elephant conflict is increasing due to conversion of elephant habitat to settlements and permanent cultivation.
The University of Alberta Botanic Garden is Alberta's largest botanical garden. It was established in 1959 by the University of Alberta. It is located approximately 3.1 km (1.9 mi) west of the city of Edmonton, Alberta and 5.9 km (3.7 mi) north of the town of Devon, in Parkland County.
The Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests are a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion of the island of Sri Lanka.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya are about 5.5 km to the west of the city of Kandy in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. In 2016, the garden was visited by 1.2 million locals and 400,000 foreign visitors. It is near the Mahaweli River. It is renowned for its collection of orchids. The garden includes more than 4000 species of plants, including orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palm trees. Attached to it is the "National Herbarium of Sri Lanka". The total area of the botanical garden is 147 acres (0.59 km2), at 460 meters above sea level, and with a 200-day annual rainfall. It is managed by the Department of national botanic gardens.
The wildlife of Sri Lanka includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of biological endemism.
Deforestation is one of the most serious environmental issues in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's current forest cover as of 2017 was 29.7%. In the 1920s, the island had a 49 percent forest cover but by 2005 this had fallen by approximately 26 percent. Between 1990 and 2000, Sri Lanka lost an average of 26,800 ha of forests per year. This amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.14%. Between 2000 and 2005 the rate accelerated to 1.43% per annum. However, with a long history of policy and laws towards environmental protection, deforestation rates of primary cover have decreased 35% since the end of the 1990s thanks to a strong history of conservation measures. The problem of deforestation in Sri Lanka is not as significant in the southern mountainous regions as it is in northern and lowland southern Sri Lanka, largely due to the nature of environmental protection.
The Sri Lanka lowland rain forests represents Sri Lanka's Tropical rainforests below 1,000 m (3,281 ft) in elevation in the southwestern part of the island. The year-around warm, wet climate together with thousands years of isolation from mainland India have resulted in the evolution of numerous plants and animal species that can only be found in rain forests in Sri Lanka. The thick forest canopy is made up of over 150 species of trees, some of the emergent layer reaching as high as 45 m (148 ft). The lowland rain forests accounts for 2.14 percent of Sri Lanka's land area. This ecoregion is the home of the jungle shrew, a small endemic mammal of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has the highest density of amphibian species worldwide. Many of these, including 250 species of tree frogs, live in these rain forests.
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
Ritigala is a mountain in central Sri Lanka which is home to an ancient Buddhist monastery. The ruins and rock inscriptions of the monastery date back to 1st century BCE. It is located 43 km (27 mi) away from the ancient monastic city of Anuradhapura.
Henarathgoda Botanical Garden, also known as Gampaha Botanical Garden, is one of the six botanical gardens in Sri Lanka. The botanical garden is situated on the Gampaha-Minuwangoda main road, approximately 450 m (1,480 ft) away from Gampaha railway station. It is about 29 km (18 mi) from Sri Lanka's commercial capital of Colombo.
Mirijjawila Botanical Garden is one of the five botanical gardens in Sri Lanka. The other botanical gardens are Peradeniya Botanical Garden, Hakgala Botanical Garden, Henarathgoda Botanical Garden and Seetawaka Botanical Garden.
Malwattage Celestine Violet Savitri Gunatilleke is professor emeritus at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka's Central Province. She has had a long career in forest ecology and has been a leader in quantitative ecology and education. Most of her research has focused in the Sinharaja rain forest in Sri Lanka. She considers her main contribution to forest ecology to be spreading the idea that successful forest conservation depends on local conservationists. In line with this, she is proud of her students and their accomplishments in the field of conservation.
Sri Lanka exhibits a remarkable biological diversity and is considered to be the richest country in Asia in terms of species concentration.
