Understanding Why Conservation Matters for Sri Lanka – Part 4
Photo courtesy of tourhero
Sri Lanka in 1881 was an emerald island. Its forests blanketed 84 percent of the land with their canopies stretching endlessly across mountains and valleys. Today, a mere 29.7 percent remains. This is not merely statistics or limited to academic studies. Here is the story of a nation slowly severing its own lifeline.
Between 1960 and 2010, nearly one million hectares of forest vanished. Coffee and tea plantations marched across hillsides. Massive irrigation schemes consumed 25,000 acres in single projects. Post-war tourism zones claimed another 17,800 acres. Each cleared hectare represented not just lost trees but fractured wildlife corridors, disrupted water cycles and communities pushed toward inevitable collisions.
In 2025, the numbers tell a harrowing tale. Three hundred and ninety seven elephants dead – shot, electrocuted and blown apart by illegal explosives. These deaths are not random tragedies. They are the predictable outcome of animals with nowhere left to go, forced from vanishing habitats into farmlands by starvation.
The jackal population has plummeted 60 percent in two decades. Without these natural predators, peacocks have exploded beyond the dry zone into wet regions and upset the ecological balances cultivated over thousands of years. Invasive species have transformed forests into food deserts. Elephants and monkeys have been pushed toward human settlements not due to aggression, but their desperation.
Conservation agencies requested Rs. 325 million for 2025. Initially, they received nothing. The previous year brought Rs. 8 million against a request for Rs. 129 million. Electric fences deteriorate, becoming death traps rather than deterrents.
This highlights the results of critical environmental budget cuts despite ongoing climate challenges like Cyclone Ditwah and floods. The agencies are forced to rely on disaster relief aid and international support to fund critical conservation and recovery efforts for ecological sustainability.
This is the anatomy of failure. Large scale elephant drives continue despite scientific evidence of their futility, pushing animals into ever-shrinking territories. This is nothing but treating symptoms while ignoring causes, trying to apply human-centric solutions to ecosystem-level problems and starving conservation efforts precisely when they matter most.
The November 2024 floods and landslides were not merely weather events; they were invoices coming due. When forests vanish from steep slopes, rain that should seep gently into soil instead becomes torrents of destruction. Landslides bury communities. Sediment choke rivers. Reservoirs lose capacity just when water management becomes critical. The same deforestation that creates catastrophic floods also guarantees punishing droughts. Water that should recharge aquifers races to the ocean. Rivers that sustained communities for generations dwindle to dry beds. The extremes intensify while the buffer zones disappear.
Forests aren’t simply collections of trees; they are sophisticated water management systems infinitely more effective than concrete and steel. Forest canopies intercept rainfall, breaking its destructive force. Their root networks create underground channels, transforming soil into natural sponges that store water and release it gradually through dry seasons.
Through evapotranspiration, trees create flying rivers of atmospheric moisture. A single large tree releases hundreds of litres of water vapour daily. This contributes to cloud formation and rainfall patterns across entire regions. The central highlands receive rain for a reason. Trees generate rain, ensuring the dry zones remain habitable and agricultural lands stay productive.
Forest soils act as biological filtration systems, purifying water without treatment facilities. Tree roots anchor slopes against erosion and landslides. The cooling effect of forests moderates temperature extremes and makes landscapes resilient to climate change. When these systems function properly, communities flourish. When they collapse, disasters follow.
Effective solutions share certain common elements proven globally and now emerging in Sri Lanka as follows:
Habitat restoration and corridor protection that provide wildlife space to exist naturally. Transforming degraded commercial plantations back to diverse native forests[i], restoring grasslands and protecting migratory routes so that these create the ecological foundation for genuine coexistence.
Community-based management engaging local stakeholders as partners. Village level fencing, trained civil security officers working with communities and efficient compensation systems will recognise the fact that people living alongside wildlife are crucial to any solution addressing this challenge and that they are not obstacles to overcome.
Ecosystem level thinking addresses the entire web of relationships. Protecting jackals controls peacock populations, rats and crop pests naturally while restoring balance. The 1995 hotline[ii] for wildlife harm reporting, AI-enabled early warning systems and data-driven management combined with traditional ecological knowledge will create responses more effective than either approach alone.
The Wana Surakuma Task Force launched in November 2025 integrates various agencies to combat illegal logging and environmental crimes. The 30×30 initiative aims to protect 30 percent of ecosystems by 2030. It focuses on disrupting forest loss in dry regions and enhancing connectivity in wet zones.
The focus of the mangrove regeneration programme, recognised as a UN World Restoration Flagship, is on restoring 10,000 hectares by 2030 through science-based methods and community involvement. It is a shift from failed mass plantings to supporting natural growth after the 2004 tsunami highlighted their importance. These programmes demonstrate government’s willingness to act. However, the need is for the sustained funding of programmes and their rigorous implementation.
First, protection of remaining critical forests, particularly central highlands, steep slopes and headwater catchments; some forests are simply too important to lose. Their value in water regulation, erosion control and climate moderation vastly exceeds any short term economic gain from their conversion.
Second, restoration of degraded lands and riverside forests: Riparian zones[iii] are particularly crucial for soil moisture, water infiltration, quality and flood buffering.
Third, integration of forest, land and water management across whole landscapes. Rivers function as units from mountain headwaters to coastal estuaries. Forests, agriculture, urban development and water supply must all be planned together, not separately, for effective management to occur. This requires coordination across districts, ministries and sectors.
Sri Lanka stands at a crossroads. One option keeps things the way they are with forests continuing to shrink, conflicts intensifying, ecosystems collapsing until restoration is impossible and human communities and wildlife facing ongoing crises.
The other option implements proven solutions of investing adequately in conservation, restoring habitats and corridors, engaging communities as partners and fundamentally rethinking development to work together with nature rather than against it.
Every meal depends on water from forested watersheds. Every kilowatt hour of hydropower begins with rain on forested mountains. Every community’s health depends on clean water filtered by forest soils. When forests are destroyed, everything fails.
The forests of Sri Lanka are not merely resources to exploit or obstacles to development. They are living systems that regulate water, stabilise soil, moderate climate, support wildlife and ultimately make human civilisation on the island possible.
The choice Sri Lanka has is stark. The time for making that choice is now. The cost of action is substantial but manageable. The cost of inaction is catastrophic and irreversible.
Forests are the lifeline we cannot afford to lose. We are running out of time to save them.
[i] A native forest is a forest primarily composed of indigenous, naturally occurring tree species that have developed complex, long-standing relationships with local wildlife and ecosystems. It distinguishes itself from commercial plantations, even if they use indigenous trees.
[ii] The “1995” hotline is a specific number in Sri Lanka for reporting damage to the nation’s forest system or environment. The information is used by security forces and the Department of Wildlife Conservation to address forest and wildlife-related crimes immediately.
[iii] A riparian zone is the vital, fertile area alongside rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands. It acts as a natural transition between water and drier land, characterised by unique vegetation adapted to moist conditions. It provides critical functions such as filtering pollution, stabilising banks, controlling floods, and offering food and habitat for diverse wildlife.
Read Part 3 here: https://groundviews.org/2025/12/30/understanding-why-conservation-matters-for-sri-lanka-part-3/
