Reviving Sri Lanka's degraded forests through community and conservation

■ Siyabalagaswewa Forest is now being gazetted as a Reserved Forest, ensuring long-term protection ■ The area will soon be legally recognised as a protected forest under the 30×30 conservation target

- BY DIVYA THOTAWATTE

MARKING a significant step in Sri Lanka's fight against deforestation and climate change, a public-private partnership has restored 35 hectares of the Siyabalagaswewa Forest, with ongoing efforts to rehabilitate 100+ hectares of adjoining farmland and secure permanent protected status.

This initiative was launched as a pilot model focused on a collaboration to protect Sri Lanka's forests and lands using Nature-based Solutions (NbS) under Project CORE: Climate-smart Opportunities through Restoration and Education. It was led by HSBC Sri Lanka in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Department of Forest Conservation.

Since its launch in 2021, Project CORE has piloted NbS for Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) interventions across the Kimbulwewa Cascade landscape in Thuppitiyawa GN Division. These interventions target degraded lands and community areas, aiming to enhance biodiversity, improve community livelihoods, build climate resilience, and sequester carbon in one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in Sri Lanka's dry zone.

Stressing the significance of this degraded land restoration initiative, Sri Lanka Forest Department Deputy Conservator Nishantha Edirisinghe said that Sri Lanka was now committed to protecting 30% of its land under the Global Biodiversity Framework. But it currently only protects around 25%. To meet this target, the Forest Department was actively working on gazetting more forests as protected areas.

However, even once these areas are officially recognised as protected areas, the law still allowed for collaboration with communities, including benefit-sharing and involving them in conservation efforts.