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Forests
and biodiversity in Sri Lanka
The Ecology of Sri Lanka is unique and considered as one of
the world's bio-diversity hot-spots, caused by its
geographical position and by its
geological and
climatic history.
Sri Lanka
was a part of the Gondwana supercontinent, which also
included South America, Africa, India and Antarctica.
Gondwana began to break up 140 million years ago. The
tectonic plate on which Sri Lanka was located, the
Indian plate, moved towards north, collided with the
Eurasian plate creating the Himalayas. Sri Lanka was
originally part of the Deccan land mass, contiguous with
Madagascar. Therefore, Madagascar shows close
relationship to Sri Lanka in its geology and biological
resources. Sri Lanka was connected, off and on at least
17 times in the past 700,000 years, to India.
Sri
Lanka has been classified into 6 major bioclimatic
zones; low and mid country wet zone, montane wet zone,
montane intermediate zone, dry zone, low and mid country
intermediate zone and arid zone based on the natural
vegetation or the forests. Sri Lanka's forests have the
highest density of species diversity in the world.
Low land rain
forests
Montane rain
forests
Dry zone
evergreen forests and other vegetations
Sri Lanka
holds significant biodiversityž 3,350 species of
flowering plants and more than 300 species of ferns, of
which many are endemic. More than 500 species of native
flora have been used in traditional medicine. At least
189 medicinal plant species on Sri Lanka are found
nowhere else in the world. Sri Lanka’s valuable
medicinal plants are threatened by: (a) overharvesting
and lack of care for habitat when collecting from the
wild, (b) restricted capacity to grow medicinal plants
in nurseries and home gardens, (c) increased demand for
agricultural land and unsustainable cultivation
practices, such as slash and burn, and (d) lack of
comprehensive and authoritative information, awareness,
and technical skills on medicinal plants and their uses.
Read on
Loss of biodiversity
in Sri Lanka
More
information on Biodiversity in Sri Lanka
Click on
Biodiversity
Click on
Birds
Click on
Amphibians
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