[1] According to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Sinharaja is the country's last viable area of primary tropical rainforest.

Birds tend to move in mixed feeding flocks, invariably led by the fearless Sri Lanka drongo and the noisy orange-billed babbler.

The word Sinharaja means lion- (සිංහ/சிங்கம் sinha) king or kingdom (රාජ/ராஜா raja), and a popular folk legend has it that a legendary lion lived in this protected forest.

The locals collect herbal medicine, edible fruits, nuts, mushrooms, other non-timber forest products including bees honey and a sugary sap collected from a local palm species of the genus Caryota.

Local people walk in the forest to collect the above items when they are not busy with their other agricultural pursuits.

For generations, local people trekked through the forest from south to north to make their annual pilgrimage to the Adams Peak.

A group of environmentalists carried out a big social media campaign and asked the Sri Lanka Forest Department, the President, the Ministry of Environment and the Central Environment authority to stop this but the Government of Sri Lanka has decided to go ahead with it to improve the livelihood of poor villagers of the area as it will clear only 0.006% of the total landmass of the forest.