Morawaka, and the Forest on Its Doorstep
One of our two farms is at Morawaka, bordering the Sinharaja rainforest, so animals come onto the plantation and young cinnamon needs protecting.
One of our two farms is at Morawaka, in the Matara District in the south of Sri Lanka.
The place
Morawaka is a small town about 85 metres above sea level, where the road from Akuressa to Deniyaya meets the B363 (Wikipedia). Galle is about 65 kilometres to the south-west. Colombo is about 144 kilometres away.
The area grows tea and rice. There are gems in the ground here too. It is a working farming district, not a tourist one.
The forest
North-east of Morawaka, past Deniyaya, is the Sinharaja Forest Reserve.
Sinharaja is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It covers about 11,187 hectares across three districts, and UNESCO calls it the last viable area of primary rainforest left in Sri Lanka (UNESCO).
More than 60 per cent of the trees there grow nowhere else in the world. Sri Lanka has twenty rainforest birds that live in no other country, and nineteen of them have been recorded in Sinharaja. Of the 39 mammals in the reserve, 8 are found only in Sri Lanka, and of the 65 butterflies, 21 are (UNESCO).
What that means day to day
Our estate borders the reserve. The town of Morawaka is about 15 kilometres south of the forest edge, but the land runs up to it.
So animals come onto the plantation. Monkeys are the usual ones, and there are always birds. Young cinnamon plants are soft and they get eaten, so new plantings need protecting until they are woody enough to look after themselves.
This is normal here and we plan for it rather than fight it.
The other thing the forest gives us is rain. Morawaka sits in the wet zone, and the cutting weeks follow the weather rather than a calendar.
What we will not say
Bordering the reserve is not the same as being in it. Nothing we sell is cut inside Sinharaja, and no bird or monkey has anything to do with how the cinnamon tastes.
Most cinnamon is sold with no address at all. We sell straight from our own farms instead of through a line of buyers and exporters, and naming the place is what makes that checkable.
Our other farm is at Wilpita. That one is next.
Sources: Sinharaja Forest Reserve, UNESCO · Morawaka, Wikipedia
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Satellite imagery © Esri.
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