Sri Lanka, a tourist paradise

Sri Lanka is a very popular tourist paradise in the world. There are many interesting places in this country. Tourists come here for holidays and for sight seeing.Tourist attractions in our country include ruins, water falls, forests, botanical gardens and sandy beaches. Ruins represent our great old history, our heritage. They are testimony to the times of our ancient rulers the kings. Tourists who are interested in history, sculpture, and art visit these ruins.

There are also many colourful religious festivals in our country such as the Kandy Perahera which attracts many tourists. It is a spectacular event in our country with traditional dancers, drummers and many others including elephants parading the streets. The fire walking ceremony in Kataragama is also eye catching and tourists are fascinated by such religious events.

National parks also play role in the tourist industry. Yala, Wilpattu, Wasgamuwa and Kumana are some of the famous natural parks in our country. Yala is famous for deer, peacocks and elephants while Kumana is famous for birds. In Kumana one can see thousands of birds in their natural habitat. There are may indigenous and migrant birds in this park.Tourists especially, animal lovers never forget to visit these parks and also the elephant orphanage, Pinnawala.

There is also a very interesting place which shows the architectural feats of our great kings. It is the rock fortress Sigiriya.The coral gardens at Hikkaduwa are another feature that increases the natural beauty of our country and attract tourists.

We as Sri Lankans should try to protect and preserve ou

Trees are very important for the existence of human beings. Trees take in carbondioxide and give out oxygen which is essential for humans to survive. Plants also produce food for humans and animals.

The leaves of trees absorb water which evaporates into the atmosphere. When the evaporated water is condensed it falls back to the Earth as rain. In turn the rain water is absorbed by the roots of trees and again evaporated through the leaves to the atmosphere. That is why people say that trees make rain.

Trees are grown in a number of places. Some are grown in jungles like Singharaja. Others are grown in man-made gardens like Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. Certain trees are planted in home gardens. There is a popular tree planting campaign named “Ruk Rekaganna” initiated by Irangani Serasinghe, the famous actress.

People clear jungles for construction purposes and also cultivation. As a result, when the human population increases, the plant population decreases. This is a big problem to fauna and flora of the country.However, there are several programmes to protect trees. The Government has also set up a separate department called “Forest Conservation Department’ in order to protect these jungle resources. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) too have introduced several programmes to conserve forests. But they alone can’t protect jungles unless they get the co-operation of other people.

Re-forestation programmes are organised by the “Forest Conservation Department” annually with the assistance of several organisations.

Now that we are aware that trees are a part and parcel of human life, it is our duty and responsibility to conserve trees for the benefit of the future generations.