Sri Lanka - A Tropical Rain Forest in a secluded corner of hill country

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Thank you for the visit

I would like to invite you to a special place....

A secluded paradise in the island called Sri Lanka....

Please Come with me... and tell me what I should do to preserve it..

The place I am taking you is situated about 23 kilometers from Kandy.

Blessed with a very mild climate, Kandy is the second largest city in Sri Lanka located in the middle of the hills and can be considered as the cultural capital of the country.

The animated GIF. In the top of this page is a Kandian dancer.

It is really unfortunate that in the far north corner of the country there is an ongoing conflict. Such things are happening everywhere.

Eventually those issues will be settled and it does not mean that all the other activities and plans for the future developments needs to be stopped because of it.

Central part of the country where I have promised to take you is a very peaceful place.

People are friendly and majority is farmers who earn their living by cultivating their paddy fields or working at tea gardens.

Passing Kandy we will be travelling along a winding road through villages bordering paddy fields and tea gardens.

You may even see an elephant taking a bath in the river after a hard day's work.

Now you have reached the destination.

Let us stroll along the gravel road and enter the place.

It is a patch of unspoiled tropical rainforest situated in the middle of hills.

I will show you what a splendid place it is to build a holiday resort or a tropical rain forest theme park.

This is a place where orchids are growing wild in the sheer rock face and endemic birds, butterflies and wild plants are still surviving.

Surrounded by a ring of hills with lush green tea gardens, A beautiful creek flowing with crystal clear water borders the property.

There are two beautiful waterfalls within the boundary of this unique land.

The first waterfall is easy to reach. You can walk through the path along the disused irrigation canal first built as far back as 18^th century to irrigate the rice paddy.

Restored it can be used as a feeding canal of a small electric power generation plant or a water slide.

On the way towards the fall, you are passing the undergrowth of giant trees of rainforest. Many are bearing flowers or fruit, a heaven for monkeys and birds.

You may see a lone Kingfisher parched in a boulder near the creek or an eagle circling up above the tree canopy.

Dry leaves litter the floor. The music of water rushing through the boulders and the sound of waterfall mixed with the chatter of birds hiding in the branches brings the tranquility to the mind.

You are in peace with nature. Through the lush forest growth now you can have a peek at the waterfall number one.

Let us go down through the bush to have a closer look. A pleasing sight isn't it. Water is warm and inviting. Did you bring your towel?

Sit under a shade of a tree and relax there is no hurry.

If you are coming with me to visit the second waterfall then better take a rest now as a little bit of hard tracking is ahead.

Having rested we can continue our walk upstream a bit of climb through the forest and 10 minutes of journey now you are there Now through the jungle you get a glimpse at the waterfall.

This is a private property with a rock solid title coming from a court ruling and is not for sale.

Though the area of this land is 44 acres (17ha) a visitor can wander through the land for a full day looking at wild flowers, admiring fish or birds or the beautiful natural landscape.

I am not disclosing the actual address of the place in this web page as it will create an influx of visitors to the place. Unless it is opened as a resort or a theme park with proper amenities and management in place, uncontrolled visitor traffic will ruin the fragile environment in no time.

The main concern is protecting the present environment.

At the moment this land is not generating a single rupee of income. Though it is very easy to sell the trees for timber, clear the forest and plant tea, coffee, rice, banana or vegetables using the water from the irrigation canal.

Such an action will certainly generate income but it is hard to make up the mind to do it, as it will completely destroy the beauty and the unique environment forever.

It is a hart less thing to do. The best course of action is to generate an income using the available resources.

There are number of ways of generating an income which were put forward by well wishers.

Their ideas are the following:

The Ideas

Build a big five star hotel complex such as one you see in the picture (Picture courtesy Hunas falls hotel) and maintain the property from the income generated.

Build a small-scale power generation plant.
Good ideas, but how to rise immense amount of money required to build such things?

Grow flowers or tropical foliage plants in a part of the property and leave the major part as reserve.
Where is the buyer and the initial investment can come from?

Build a number of small cottages for the visitors around a central servicing complex such as ones you see here (Picture courtesy Hotel Chalet)

Yes, a good idea provided at least ten or twelve families who live abroad and like to have a holiday home in Sri Lanka would agree to share the building cost.

Once the cottages and the administration office are on place, up to a period of 15 years the sponsor family can have free accommodation for two months each year.

They will be provided with free airport pickup and drop back whenever they want to come. For the other ten months the cottages will be used as foreign tourist accommodation for a nominal fee. Perhaps those families themselves may like to send their friends from abroad, thus we can find funds for upkeep, security, maintenance and the development of the place.

Forest Park and the Rest Area

Inspired by the Australian parks such as Lysterfield Lake Park and the Healesville Sanctuary, the proposal is to develop the area as Nature preserve/Park

There are no Natural Gardens opened for the public in Sri Lanka.

All gardens presently available are artificially established gardens with the exotic fauna, the Botanical Gardens at Paradaniya, Gampaha and the Haggala and the Victoria Park at Colombo are the only gardens and parks opened for the general public and are over crowded during most of the time. (According to statistics Two Hundred and fifty thousand people had visited the Royal Botanical Gardens at peradaniya during the 6 month period of January to June 1999.)

The park will consist of 10 visitors cottages, nature trails and jungle tracks, Chair Lift, Tree walks, Water Slide, a nursery to propagate locally growing foliage plants and a permanent Exhibition building for the benefit of the visitors.

(The exhibits will cover the areas such as indigenous plants, birds, fish, environment protection, sustainable forest management and Agricultural practices, Bio diversity, History of the area and culture, handicrafts, medicinal and economical value of the local trees and shrubs. Existing example -Healsville nature park - Australia)

Once opened the park will certainly attract people form different backgrounds, specially the government and private sector employees with their families who wish to spent time for a family picnic, school children who are interested in local flora and fauna, and the foreign tourists who want to experience the pristine beauty of the country will be the key target groups.

Those are the main ideas about how to generate an income from this property without destroying the natural beauty of the place.

The idea of the Nature Park is appealing but from whom we can get support to establish such a park. How to get funds for the development and maintenance? At least during the first five years. (No more bank loans please).

These questions are opened to you.

Since you visited the place tell me what do you think?

What shall we do?

You may be able to help with these questions.

If you have any idea or a proposal or you know of any organisation which may be of help kindly let me know. It will be very much appreciated.

....... ........ ....... Contact Address is: preserve_green@hotmail.com...............

Note:

I would like to ask you to visit again to this web page to monitor how we are progressing.

We will keep you informed about the progress through the web page. Mean time, please visit our sponsors whose advertisement banners are displayed unobtrusively at the end of this page.

Thank you.

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