New life for Kanneliya’s degraded rainforest
The site in 2022 and a nursery there. Pix from BSL
The beginnings were not only small and humble. The vision seemed impossible to achieve!
Five years after, having grappled with different challenges including those posed by some plants and animals and also the vagaries of the weather, it has emerged a winner.
It is all about ‘LIFE’, a project by Biodiversity Sri Lanka (BSL) to restore a degraded forest and now it is to be used as the ‘model’ or ‘template’ across Sri Lanka to give new life to other areas.
The celebration of LIFE with Kanneliya, which is sited very close to the Sinharaja Rainforest, as the centre of attention was held on July 12 at ‘Genesis’, the Dilmah Centre for a Sustainable Future in Colombo.
It was also a celebration of BSL’s partnership with many others in this pioneering private sector-led initiative.
An “incredible” and “formidable” achievement is how the Chair of the Board of Directors of BSL and CEO Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company, Dilhan C. Fernando described this groundbreaking project.
“Together we can achieve much more,” he said, while the Conservator-General of Forests, Dr. K.M.A. Bandara stressed how important this model is as forests in the Wet Zone are more complex and, therefore, more challenging to restore than those in the Dry Zone.
What was underscored at the function was that Kanneliya’s success highlighted a new and effective methodology for the restoration of highly degraded rainforests and also the importance of scientific field verifications and the calculation of bio-credits.
While the Kanneliya Conservation Forest has received official recognition and listing in the National Forest Restoration Database by the Forest Department, the Opatha-Kanneliya landscape, including the restoration site, has been chosen as one of the three Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) pilot sites in Sri Lanka under the prestigious Sri Lanka FLR mentorship programme.
It is Prof. Devaka Weerakoon, Head of the Department of Zoology and Environmental Sciences, University of Colombo, who “transports” us to Kanneliya, focusing on what was there before, what happened in-between and what it is today.
Explaining as to why the 10-hectare Kanneliya area is important, he says that the Kanneliya-Dediyagala-Nakiyadeniya Forest Reserve is in the south-west lowlands. It is one of the largest primary lowland rainforests in Sri Lanka. The forest complex had been designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2004 and is home to many endemic and globally-threatened species.
Prof. Weerakoon reiterated that “a forest is not just a collection of trees”. Forests create a complex three-dimensional space that supports multiple niches or lifestyles and Wet Zone forests which are more complex than Dry Zone forests are even richer in species diversity and endemicity.
“Forests are undergoing dynamic changes such as primary succession, degradation/deforestation followed by secondary succession (forest restoration),” said Prof. Weerakoon, adding that this is where BSL’s important intervention took place.
The idea was conceived in 2016 and the Kanneliya site was a ‘degraded’ rainforest given by the Forest Department. It had earlier been cleared for cultivation and abandoned, subsequently resulting in the site being colonized by the pioneer fern species kekilla (Dicranopteris linearis). The Forest Department had attempted to restore it 40 years ago.
The overall aim of the project was to restore this rainforest using principles of restoration ecology to enhance its ecological functions, habitat quality, species diversity and its capacity to provide biodiversity and ecosystem services that had been prevalent before and to develop a biodiversity credit accrual system.
In 2017, BSL developed the restoration plan with technical assistance from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
It included restoration with topographic work; assisted regeneration (with native species such as veraniya/maha bovitiya); and self-regeneration and was implemented in 2018 with technical oversight from IUCN and technical support from the Forest Department. BSL was the overall coordinator, while the local community was involved in site management.
Prof. Weerakoon said that “the site was stuck in the early stages of secondary succession due to fire and over-grazing. Clearing kekilla, land preparation and planting were interrupted due to the heavy rains and prolonged dry spells; there was slow growth of plants due to poor soil conditions; large herbivores such as sambur and small herbivores caused plant destruction; while external factors such as the fuel crisis, high fertilizer cost and inflation also impacted on the project.
An Intensive Restoration Protocol for restoring degraded rainforests invaded by kekilla has now been developed, with the acknowledgement of the success of this project coming as an extension by two more hectares. Now there are over 71 plant species and over 18,000 plants at Kanneliya.
Some of Kanneliya’s ‘yields’ have been – biodiversity conservation; carbon sequestration; and improvement in hydrology.
Prof. Weerakoon says that Kanneliya has proven to be the tried and tested method for upscaling a degraded forest.
“It is the ‘first’ multi-species recovery programme in Sri Lanka,” he says, adding that the next 5-year phase will maintain and monitor Kanneliya.
IUCN Country Representative in Sri Lanka, Dr. Shamen Vidanage, and BSL Director Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda also spoke at the function. BSL Advisor Shiranee Yasaratne and Outreach Coordinator M.M. Hanan were the live-wires at the function.
The first-stage partners who funded the project were Access Engineering PLC; Aqua Trading Global (Pvt.) Ltd.; MAS Holdings & Expolanka Holdings (Pvt) Ltd.; and the second-stage partners are Citizens Development Business Finance PLC; DIMO; Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company PLC; Hatton National Bank PLC; Jetwing Hotels Ltd.; Nations Trust Bank PLC; People’s Leasing and Finance PLC; Sampath Bank PLC; Siam City Cement (Lanka) Ltd.; Virtusa (Pvt.) Ltd. & American and Efird Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd.
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