Sinharaja Rain Forest: Sources

http://www.srilankaecotourism.com/sinharaja.htm#readmore

http://www.sinharaja.4t.com/

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/405/

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/medialibrary/2011/06/13/3e09aced/Sinharaja%20Forest%20Reserve.pdf

http://www.conservation.org/where/priority_areas/hotspots/asia-pacific/Western-Ghats-and-Sri-Lanka/Pages/conservation.aspx

http://tourssrilanka.info/mysite/forest.html

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/07/15/jun07.asp

http://www.globalinksl.com/sinharaja-forest-reserve.htm

http://protectnature.blog.com/

http://lankapura.com/2009/10/clearing-forests-to-plant-tea-late-1800s-ceylon/

http://lankapura.com/2009/06/a-camp-site-in-the-sinharaja-forest-ceylon/

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

http://www.abdf.org/category/maps/

Sinharaja Rain Forest: Ways to Improve

Although the conservation status of the Sinharaja Rain Forest is good compared to many other places, there is still space for improvement when it comes taking care of not only the forest, but the forest's resources as well. One of the main problems that the Sinharaja forest has, is the compliance of the villagers to collect resources from the forest for merchant use. The people that live by the forest want to improve it, but they do not understand how the laws that the government passes help the rain forest. To improve Sinharaja for the future, it is necessary to have programs to educate villagers of the importance of regulations and how they benefit the forest. This does not need to be complicated. Even small workshops in villages, explaining laws and demonstrating how these laws affect the forest would be a very good step in the right direction for improving resource use. (http://www.sinharaja.4t.com/)

http://tourssrilanka.info/mysite/forest.html

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/07/15/jun07.asp

Sinharaja Rain Forest: Future Possibilities

If nothing changes in the way that Sinharaja is treated, I do not believe that anything detrimental will happen to it.  The conservation status is currently good, so the worst that would happen if everything stayed the same would be that there would become less resources in the forest. However, if the amount of extracting resources were to increase in the future, a serious problem might occur with conservation status of Sinharaja. The best case for the rain forest would be if the amount of extractions decreased and the forest was to be used less.

http://www.globalinksl.com/sinharaja-forest-reserve.html

*Click on this link to see a graph that shows the amount of threat on the conservation status of the forest!

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/405/indicators/

Sinharaja Rain Forest: Human Impacts

The main problems that the Sinharaja rain forest face are directly related to humans. The negative impacts that humans create include encroachment, gemming, extracting resources from the forest, and poaching. Encoraching is a problem because compared to the forests’ earlier history, there have been an increased amount of people actually going into the forest. This is not a serious problem, but there is an evident negative consequence to a forest’s natural environment being disturbed more often. Most people who enter the forest, look for resources and extract them in order to make a profit for either themselves or someone else. Two examples of this would be villagers collecting resources for merchants, and merchants searching for gems. Merchants often times hire villagers to go into the forest for them and extract resources such as timber and rattan. The villagers comply with the merchants’ requests because of their need of money and because they recognize that the items they take from the forest, such as timber, is used to make items which they consume. Gemming is an issue, not only because merchants are taking gems from the forest, but also because of the method used to take the gems. When digging for gems, they create big holes. These holes are usually open and very dangerous for both humans and animals. Although poaching animals does happen, it is not as widespread of a problem as the others previously mentioned. Although these are serious problems in context of the forest, it is important to realize that the overall conservation status is good. Therefore, these problems are not so significant compared to problems that other rain forests are encountering today. (http://www.sinharaja.4t.com/)

http://www.globalinksl.com/sinharaja-forest-reserve.html

Sinharaja Rain Forest: Endemism

One of the most important characteristics of the Sinharaja rain forest is not only the rarity of its species, but the endemism among them. Endemism is when a species is native to a certain area. Among animals, Sinharaja has endemic birds, mammals, reptiles, butterflies, amphibians, and fish. Of these animals, birds are of the most importance to the rain forest. In fact, one of the main things Sinharaja is known for is their species of birds. Of all the endemic birds in Sri Lanka, 95% of them are found in Sinharaja. Over 50% of mammals and butterflies in the forest are endemic. Sinharaja, however, also boasts high endemism among plants and trees. Over 60% of all trees in the forest are endemic and thirteen of twenty-five smaller plants endemic to Sri Lanka are from Sinharaja. These statistics are very impressive compared to a lot of other ecosystems around the world, and serves as proof that the rain forest Sinharaja is in a relatively good conservation status. (http://www.srilankaecotourism.com/sinharaja.htm#readmore).

http://protectnature.blog.com/