Sinharaja Forest Reserve
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How it came to be
Sinharaja is the last relatively undisturbed tropical rainforest in the lowlands of south-west Sri Lanka. A narrow run of steep ridges and valleys kept people out and so protected it, and on 3 May 1875 most of the area was declared a forest reserve.
From the 1950s until his death in 2021, Martin Wijesinghe acted as the forest's unofficial guardian. It became a National Heritage Wilderness Area on 21 October 1988 and was inscribed the same year.
The reserve covers 8,864 ha. Of the 217 endemic trees and woody climbers of the lowland wet zone, 139 grow here, and 19 of Sri Lanka's 20 endemic bird species have been recorded in it. Illegal logging and gem mining still threaten the forest.
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