The Rainforest City programme aims to put Galle on the map as Sri Lanka’s “Rainforest City”.

Galle, now a thriving town, was once covered in rainforest and a few rainforest species can still be found in the town. Sri Lanka’s last remaining rainforest area is only 1.5 hours drive away from Galle and is home to 50% of the island’s endemic species of mammals, butterflies, insects, reptiles and rare amphibians.

RRI’s Rainforest City project aims to restore the diverse and indigenous  ecosystems  in the Galle municipality and strengthen and deepen the understanding of the value of Sri Lanka’s native plants. In addition it will build on a local commitment to care for the environment and to develop Galle as an attractive tourist destination.

Green islands and corridors of native species will be created throughout the city to provide shade and clean air. Rainforest species will be given to residents to plant in their gardens and to schools to plant in their grounds.  RRI will work with the local community to develop the project by providing technical advice and guidance.

To launch this project, and as part of Sri Lanka Tourism's new 10 million tree programme for carbon offsetting, a series of events took place on 16th December 2007 including:

Mahela Jayawardena, Kumar Sangakkara, Michael Vaughan, Paul Collingwood from the Sri Lankan and English national cricket teams took part in a ceremonial tree planting on the eve of their final 2007 test match. They placed four native Sri Lankan trees in the recently restored Galle Cricket Stadium. This will be the first match played here since the Tsunami: the stadium and trees are an important and essential part of Galle's restoration.

20 trees were planted in Galle Park by local schoolchildren, with the help from Galle Rotary.

1,000 mangrove trees were planted along 10KM of canal at Kepu Ela in Galle.

The next stage of the project will be to work with the Galle community to decide what species are required and in which areas they should be planted.

If you would like to get involved in this project, or want more information, please contact us.

Press information:

›  Download the Sinhalese press release
›  Download the English press release
›  Download photos of the Sri Lankan Cricket players (.zip file, 1.9MB)
›  Download photos of the English Cricket players (.zip file, 20MB)
›  Download other photos (.zip file, 2.0MB)