Sri Lanka's last major tract of primary lowland rainforest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site teeming with endemic birds, plants and wildlife.

Overview

Sinharaja is the island's most important surviving lowland tropical rainforest, straddling the Ratnapura, Galle and Matara districts in the wet southwest. A biodiversity hotspot of towering trees, misty ridges and streams, it shelters more than half of Sri Lanka's endemic species of mammals and butterflies and a wealth of endemic birds, including the Sri Lanka blue magpie and red-faced malkoha. Access is on foot with a compulsory local guide, most commonly from the Kudawa entrance on the Ratnapura side, along trails to viewpoints, waterfalls and forest streams.

History

The name Sinharaja means 'lion king'. Selective logging in the early 1970s threatened the forest before it was protected, declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 for its outstanding biodiversity and the high proportion of endemic species it protects.