Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Environmental Issues
At first glance Sri Lanka looks like a Garden of Eden. The country positively
glows in greens and is filled with the noise of endlessly chirping, cheeping,
buzzing, growling and trumpeting animals. Add to that the sheer diversity of
landscapes and climatic zones and you get a place that appears to be a nat-
ural wonderland - and indeed it is. But it's one that is under serious threat
thanks to a combination of deforestation, rapid development, pollution and
human-wildlife conflict.
Largest Surviving Tracts of Rainforest
Sri Pada Peak Wilderness Reserve (224 sq km)
Knuckles Range (175 sq km)
Sinharaja Forest Reserve (189 sq km)
Pear-shaped Treasure
Looking a lot like a plump pear, the island country of Sri Lanka dangles into the Indian
Ocean off the southern end of India. At roughly 66,000 sq km it's slightly smaller than Ire-
land, but sustains 4.5 times as many people. That's 22 million in a space stretching 433km
from north to south and only 244km at its widest point - like the entire population of Aus-
tralia taking up residence in Tasmania.
Thrust up out of the encircling coastal plains, the southern centre of the island - the core
of the pear - is dominated by mountains and tea-plantation-covered hills. The highest point
is broad-backed Mt Pidurutalagala (Mt Pedro; 2524m), rising above the Hill Country capital
city of Nuwara Eliya. However, the pyramid profile of 2243m-high Adam's Peak (Sri Pada)
is better known and far more spectacular.
Hundreds of waterways channel abundant rain from the south-central wet-zone uplands -
haven of the country's surviving rainforests - down through terraced farms, orchards and
gardens to the paddy-rich plains below. The Mahaweli Ganga, Sri Lanka's longest river, has
