The Sri Lanka Program for Forest Conservation (SLPFC) is devoted to research, education and extension of tropical forest conservation in Southwest Sri Lanka. It has several endowed programs that enable faculty, doctoral, masters and undergraduate students from the Universities of Sri Jayewardenepura, Peradeniya, Uva Wellassa and Yale (USA) to study tropical forest conservation at the SLPFC field station located in the village of Pitekele (Fig. 1a) and the adjacent Sinharaja MAB World Heritage Forest (Fig. 1b).

  • A
  • B

Figure 1 a). A view of the village of Pitekele and their tree gardens, tea and rice cultivation. The field station is located at the top of the valley adjacent to the rain forest (in the left background of this photo) with the village downstream following the river and valley. b). A View of the adjacent Sinharaja Rain forest – a World Heritage Site and Man and the Biosphere Reserve

The postgraduate Fellowship:

The goal of the postgraduate fellowship at Yale for this year is to provide practical and professional development experience in tropical forest conservation. Candidates will gain experience working with villagers and collaborating with The Sri Lanka Program for Forest Conservation (SLPFC) and its research station; they will learn tropical taxonomy, nursery propagation and work in collaboration with the NGO to develop a traditional tree garden that provides foods, timbers, medicines and spices. The garden will be designed to serve as a living and electronic demonstration for university curricula and practitioner extension; with downloadable information from the NGO’s website on the cultural, ecological and economic diversity of plants cultivated in traditional gardens in Sri Lanka.

Two recent graduates, Blair Rynearson and Logan Sander were selected from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies along with Logan’s wife Laura Luttrell. They started work on the project in October 2016. Blair Rynearson grew up in western Washington. He has a BS in ecology from Beloit College and a 2015 Masters in Forestry from Yale, six years of experience with the U.S. Forest Service as a hotshot fire fighter and as a forest technician, and over five years in tropical community and plantation forestry in Ecuador, Panama and Mexico. Logan Sander was born and grew up in Homer Alaska. He also graduated with a Masters of Forestry from Yale in 2015. He has a BS (magna cum laude) in Botany from Oregon State University. He has over five years of experience working for the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service classifying and assessing natural vegetation communities and two years working on a sustainable community forestry program as a Peace Corp volunteer in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco. It was in Morocco that he met his wife Laura Luttrell, another Peace Corp volunteer in business development. Laura hales from Virginia and has a BA in fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Masters in Public Service from Marquette University. Laura has over five years in program development and management of land trusts, food banks, and sustainable farming in the U.S.

What follows is an ongoing edited blog of their adventures in first learning about and then developing a traditional Sri Lankan village tree garden for demonstration and education.