Nature

Rivers

The longest river in Sri Lanka is the Mahaweli that is around 335 km and other rivers are important role in providing power to agriculture of the country. The other main longest rivers are Kala Oya 148 km , Kelani Ganga 145 km, Yan Oya 142 km, Deduru Oya 142 km, Walawe Ganga 138 km, Maduru Oya 135 km, Maha Oya 134 km, Kalu Ganga 129 km, Kirindi Oya 117 km, Kumbukkan Oya 116 km, Menik Oya 114 km, Gin Ganga 113 km, Mi Oya 109 km, Gal Oya 108 km. There are 103 rivers and streams from the upcountry (often) mountains of Sri Lanka.

Waterfalls

Sri Lanka has 382 waterfalls which are well distributed around the country. As examples, Devon, Diyaluma, Bambarakanda... etc. Some of waterfalls have these heights. They are Bambarakanda 241m, Rambukkana oya 203m, Diyaluma 171m, Lakpahana 129m, Kurudunoya 189m, Hunnas fall 60m, Bopath Alla 40m,  Devon's fall 97m, Dunhida 63m. Waterfalls are most commonly found in the hill country, mainly closer to towns in the Central Province.

Mountain

Sri Lanka's highest mountain, Piduruthalagala, which is about 8200 feet (2524 m) above sea level. Following mountains are world famous mountains of Sri Lanka. Piduruthalagala 2524 m, Haputhale 2351 m, Samanala 2237 m, Namunukula 2035m, Knuckles 1515 m.

Forest

The total forests cover is around 30.8% of the total land area of Sri Lanka. At these times, this area is decreasing because of people's behavior such as clearing forests for their agricultural and residential purposes... etc. Sri Lanka's tropical rain forest, the Sinharaja is a World Natural Heritage Site. Willpaththu, Kumune, Yala as like forests take a possession most important part of Sri Lankan environment and they are helping so much to the world by protecting the environment. How? They are highly decreasing the amount of CO₂ of atmosphere. Then greenhouse effect is not appear as very much. Also they brings the rain to inside of the country and keep some of water capacity at inside of the country and soon.

Flowers 

Flowers have been important to man since ancient times. People love to grow flowering plants in their home gardens. Botanical gardens like Peradeniya and Haggala have a wide variety of flowers. Natural forests like Sinharaja are also abundant in beautiful flowers.

Flowers have a fragrance and they beautify the environment. They appeal to everyone. They brighten every occasion of our lives. We use flowers to express our feeling. They are also used in religious activities. Buddhists offer flowers to Lord Buddha. Hindus garland their gods with flowers. People use them for decorations. Flowers are an integral part both at weddings and funerals.

Today flowers have become an important source of income. Many varieties of flowers are being exported to foreign markets. Selling flowering plants also brings in a good income..

Many valuable flowers are now endangered. Recently the "Araliya" trees were attacked by some fungus. Fun i, pests, diseases and climatic changes are the major threats. to flowering plants. We must take necessary steps to overcome these threats. People should be encouraged to grow flowering plants in their home gardens.

Flowering plants should be looked after well. They should be manured; weeded and watered regularly. Precautions should be taken to protect them from pests like snails, caterpillars, rats and insects.

                                     The Beira Lake

The Beira Lake is not an unfamiliar place to most of us but very few may be aware of its history from its beginning in the 16th century. With the Government's plans to develop his lake into a tourist zone (News item appeared in September 11 in the Junior Observer) we decided to enlighten you about this famous lake d also clear out any misconception you may aye had about the origin and history of the ake. I thought that Colombo's Beira Lake was a aturallake unlike the Kandy lake which is manade, until I read a reference to this lake five or ix years ago, in a translation of a book by a Portuguese priest, Father Fernao de Queyroz. Other Queyroz says, "when Vijaya Bahu. Laid age to Colombo in 1522, the Portuguese cap- in, Lopo de Britto pursued the attackers, killing d wounding them, till they reached a stream, which was afterwards dammed into a lake for the tter fortification of the city." This "stream" was a distributary of the Kelani Ganga, and was known as Kolon Ganga. A distributary is a stream or small river that owes out of the main river and discharges the ter into the sea. River deltas are formed by hese distributaries. This small river would have branched. Off the kelani Ganga at Sedawatta or thereabouts, owed along the low-lying land past Dematagoda d into the sea at a point north of the present arbour. Kolonnawa, a town to the south of the kelani Ganga is known by that name because the olon Ganga flowed through that area. At the mouth of the Kolon Ganga was a small port, Kolontota, like Gintota at the mouth of the Gin Ganga, north of Galle. It was at Kolontota that the Portuguese landed in 1505 Even then it was a busy trading port, much used by Arabs. The dam that the Portuguese built across the Kolon Ganga is gone, but its memory lives on, in a street name, Dam Street in Colombo Central.

Portuguese Era

Father Queyroz gives us more information about the lake. In 1555, the Portuguese built some houses making Kolontota "a city surrounded by a 'Calapana' (a lake) nearly three leagues and a half in length." (A league is about three miles). The writer says that one had to cross the water to get to the city and that in some places the water was up to a man's waist.

In 1578 Mayadunna, the King of Sitawaka brought his army and camped on the bank of the lake. He wanted to cut off food supplies to the Portuguese, which were brought in boats, starve them and force them to surrender. He attempted to drain the lake but failed. His son, Rajasingha besieged Colombo a few times and drained the lake twice by cutting canals, one of these is the San Sebastian canal in Maradana. The Portuguese did not surrender. There were, at that time, many islands in the lake. Don Jeronimo de Azevedo, the Portuguese Captain General had a house in one island. He came there to relax, enjoying the cool breeze blowing across the lake. One island was large enough to have 600 coconut trees and a whole village. The present Polwatta, the suburb behind 'Temple Trees', the President's residence, must be part of that island.

The lake was the scene of many battles; first between the Sinhala and the Portuguese and later between the Portuguese and Dutch and Dutch and British. In 1656, the Dutch came in boats via the Kelani Ganga and attacked the Fort and the houses outside the Fort. For six months they kept on firing their guns. The wall surrounding the Fort was broken down and the churches, houses and store houses inside the Fort were reduced to rubble. After seven months of fighting the Portuguese surrendered and with that their rule in Lanka ended.

Dutch period

The Dutch who now occupied the Fort didn't rebuild the wall (The wall was' built much later).Instead they built a fence stockade on higher ground some distance away from the old wall. The result the Fort became smaller and the lake larger. The low-lying land outside the Fort was flooded and the lake now extended to Kayman's gate in the present day Pettah.

This part of the lake was infested with crocodiles, hence the name Kayman. It is a word for crocodile in Portuguese and Spanish. An island in the Caribbean (West Indies) is known as Cayman Island. The enlarged lake was connected by canals "with the Kelani river to the north and with BoIgoda Lake and Panatura river to the south." The town outside the Fort was called Aut Stad. Today's Pettah is the Auto Stand.

The Dutch controlled Colombo and the low country for 140 years from 1656. The British who were now in the Indian Ocean started attacking the Dutch in 1795. They too came across the lake. The Dutch fought back but it was not a long battle. On February 7, 1796 the Dutch surrendered and the period of Dutch rule in the low country ended. (Another 19 years passed before the British took full control of the whole of Lanka).

British period

When the British took control of Colombo the lake was 400 acres in extent. Here and there in the lake were small islands. Slave Island was one such island and it was called by that name because the slaves who worked in Dutch houses were sent there for the night. . The Dutch had grown cinnamon on that island. Captain's Garden, the slightly high ground between Fort and Maradana Railway Stations, where there is a Hindu Kovil now, was an island then. In that island was a fresh water well that supplied drinking water to the officers and residents in the Fort.

The brought by black people in leather’s called bags.' From accounts left by army officers, by residents and visitors we learn that in the early days of British rule, the "blue lake of Colombo" was a beautiful place, that many streams fed the lake and it extended up to four or five miles in a north easterly direction. The lake was an ideal place for boating. Those residing on the banks of the lake went by boat to their work places in the Fort. There were frequent parties and sporting events on the bank.

When news reached Ceylon that the British had defeated Napolean, a ball was held on the bank to celebrate the victory. For about fifty years Colombo didn't change much. The change came in the 1860s. The first train from Colombo to Ambepussa ran in 1865. The construction of the railway line must have started at least in early 1864. The railway station was at the eastern (Maradana) end of the lake.

The Colombo Municipal Council was established in 1865. About 20 years later land by the lake began to be sold to commercial companies. They wanted land on the lake front because it was easy to transport their goods barrels of coffee and bales of cinnamon and spices by boat to the harbour. The canal by Lake House on its left, is one canal along which the boats went to the harbour. Today only names remain to tell us what and what areas were parts of the lake or its shore. The land where St. Joseph's College stands and the surrounding area was known as Suduwella white sandy shore. There is still a Municipal ward by that name. Today there isn't one square meter of white sand left of that once white sandy shore.

As the population of Colombo increased so did the garbage. Much of it went into the lake and the water got polluted. The garbage on the bank gave out a horrible stench and was the breeding ground of mosquitoes and flies. It was this stench and mosquito fly menace that led to the closing of the school - Colombo Academy sited near the lake. It was reopened in Cinnamon Gardens under a new name Royal College.

Henry Trimen, the author of 'A Handbook of the Flora of Ceylon' observed a great variety of plants in the lake, in 1879. Twelve years later they were all gone. The water was so polluted with more and more buildings coming up on the water front and the population increasing the lake got more and more polluted.

The selling of land on the lake front continued into the 1990. In the last two decades of the 20th century, hotels, banks and Government offices, came up on the banks of the lake, some five, six, storeys high. Now those going on D. R. Wijewardene Mawatha or Chittampalam A. Gardiner Mawatha hardly get a glimpse of the lake. Only the part of the lake where the 'Seema Malaka' is can be seen.Hotels, printing presses, food processing factories, beverage manufacturies and slums round the lake were diverting their polluted water into the lake. But, the major source of pollution-was the raw sewage that was sent into the lake.

What was once an ornament to the city had by 1990s become a health hazard? Work on the restoration of the lake with World Bank aid started at the turn of the century.  The lake was dredged, algae destroyed, algae eating fish introduced and underserved settlements by the lake, improved.

Madu Ganga

Between Colombo and Galle there exists a beautiful river called Madu Ganga in Balapitiya which offers a glimpse of how it has become a part of the life of the people in the area .In the outset Madu Ganga is considered as Sri Lanka's second largest wetland consisting of 28 islands including two main islands providing shelter to 215 families.Over the past generations Madu Ganga has played an important role in providing food and shelter and of course providing easy access to the main land via small wooden boats.

During the pre colonization period Madu ganga was used as one of the main water ways connecting cities and ancient Sinhala Kingdoms.

The main treasure of Madu Ganga is its mangroves that act as a bio-lock to the area in giving protection to the variety of aquatic plants and animal life. They provide a home for different kinds of aquatic plants, crabs, shrimps, fish, various invertebrates and other animal life including crocodiles .

According to villagers the main secret of the Madu Ganga is the tide. On any given day during the low tide the sea water comes inland and mixes with fresh water and in the evening it is the other way around - the magic of nature .

Villagers say that many generations ago, the Madu Ganga flowed by peaceful villages . People had a very basic life style and everything was fulfilled through Madu Ganga by means of agriculture and fishing. Strangely despite the rapid development in the country most people living in and around the Madu Ganga still engage in traditional methods of catching fish such as use of yoth and other small nets. Shrimp farming is popular here. For that they make use of the traditional method of laying separators made out of bamboo. In the night the fishermen light kerosene lamps and place it in a trap box. According to fishermen the shrimp follow the light of the lamp and get trapped in the box. Today shrimp farming has become a good source of income, but is a dying profession in Madu Ganga.

Shrimp farmer David Silva has been engaged in this trade for the past 30 years and sees an end to this after his death.

" I have been engaged in shrimp farming over the past 30 years and there were many people doing this to earn money. But today there are only 10 people like me actually doing this job- others have either passed away or switched to another profession due to the factors threatening the existence of shrimp farming or 'Ja- kotu'" he said.

According to David the influx of motorized boats has gravely affected the growth and continuation of the traditional way of shrimp farming. "These motor boats drive fast damaging our bamboo separators. On the other hand Shrimps lay their eggs in the mangroves and they are disturbed by the fast moving boats." he said.

Taking tourists on boat rides is a growing business in the Madu Ganga. Everyday local and foreign tourists come there to go on boat rides which take a couple of hours. Traveling by boat is a good way for tourists to witness and discover the real beauty of Madu Ganga.