ABOUT

Sinharaja:
Home of the Community Forest

The Sinharaja rainforest in Sri Lanka is a precious natural gem, teeming with exotic wildlife and unique flora and fauna. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Rainforest since 1988.

More than 60% of the trees in Sinharaja can only be found here, and most of them are considered rare.¹ You'll also find countless endemic animal species that are not found anywhere else on Earth and call this place home.

The legally protected forest reserve covers an area of approximately 18,900 acres. However, the actual size of the Sinharaja rainforest is estimated to be around 36,000 acres.²

Sri Lanka's Last Virgin Rainforest is in Danger

Illegal activities and deforestation are the biggest threat to this incredibly lush and diverse ecosystem; and in 2021 alone, 13,300 hectares of Sri Lanka's natural forest were lost.

These destructive activities range from illegal poaching, tourism and encroachment for tea and cardamom cultivation, to gem mining, fires, logging, hydropower development and road construction, all leading to habitat destruction and overexploitation.

Become Part of Protecting the Forest

Save a vital part of our planet's biodiversity and ensure that future generations can enjoy the wonder and beauty of this incredible natural treasure.

We aim to purchase and protect as much privately held rainforest land as possible, creating buffer zones and biodiversity corridors to facilitate wildlife movement. Based on our research and calculations, we are confident that we can secure the protection of at least 5 hectares of land with our collection.

Exploring the Power
of Neural Networks for Image Generation

We created a program that feeds input sentences into a neural network model that generates high-quality images. The model was trained to associate visual features, such as colors, shapes, and textures, with different textual descriptions.

To create an image, the model uses the input text as a conditional factor and creates an image based on the training data and outputs an image that matches the input condition, a process known as conditional image generation.

Beyond Photography
The Artistic Vision of Artificial Intelligence

Note that none of the images you see are actual photographs. Some may appear photorealistic, while others contain abstract or glitchy elements. In our view, this distinctive combination is a novel approach to present digital art.

We have curated this unique art collection inspired by the natural beauty of Sri Lanka. We thoughtfully incorporated, combined, tested and arranged the traits to reflect the wonders of the land.

Meet Our Dynamic Duo :
The Passionate Team Behind Sri Lankan Junglers

Lewis is the visionary driving our project with a passion for protecting the environment and creating a more equitable world. An adventurous spirit who welcomes the unexpected. With a background as a biological lab technician, he left his job to pursue his dream of independence and freedom. Upon arriving in Sri Lanka, he began learning the local language and quickly immersed himself in the culture. Over the past year, he has gained expertise in AI, Python, Scrypto, and other areas, giving him a unique perspective on our NFT project. He is backed by an experienced coder, ensuring the project runs smoothly & safely.

Meisi brings in her experience as a researcher and scientist. She is currently doing her PhD in bioinformatics and is passionate about science and technology, health and sustainability. She is a yogi and surfer, and she loves reading and writing. Meisi's commitment to the environment is unwavering, and she brings that same passion to every aspect of the project. Her knowledge and interdisciplinary skill-set make her a valuable asset to the team.

Join Our Community

We partnered up with a non-profit environmental organization that shares our passion for sustainability and conservation:

Meet our Partners: The Rainforest Protectors

A non-profit organization, dedicated to safeguarding the remaining rainforests and endangered ecosystems in Sri Lanka, such as the Sinharaja rainforest, by spearheading conservation efforts and environmental activism with the help of volunteers.

The organization also conducts investigations, reports on critical issues, and collaborates with relevant authorities and stakeholders to identify and implement solutions to protect our rainforests and wildlife. The rainforest protectors trust enables them to buy privately held rainforest for conservation.

Learn more about the Rainforest Protectors on their Website

We look forward to a fruitful partnership in our shared mission to protect and conserve the natural wonders of Sri Lanka. Join us in supporting their efforts. Together, we can make a positive impact and contribute to a sustainable future for our planet.

The Revolutionary Blockchain Powering our Project

We're excited to share our passion for blockchain technology and the Radix network with you. If you're not familiar with blockchain, it's a distributed ledger technology that securely and transparently records transactions on a network of computers. This makes it a great solution for sectors where trust and transparency are essential.

We chose the Radix blockchain for our project because it's currently one of the best technologies out there. Not only is it exceptionally energy efficient, resulting in minimal CO2 emissions for our project, but it's also highly secure, scalable, and decentralized.⁵

These are all important factors in what's known as the blockchain trilemma, where improving one factor can come at the cost of reducing another, leading to slow transaction times, network congestion, high fees, and compromised security, potentially resulting in lost funds or stolen assets.⁶ Radix aims to solve this trilemma. We are super excited about the next big update called “Babylon” on September 27, 2023. where Radix takes a big step to prove itself.

What's more, Radix values user-friendliness and is easy to use. Their programming language, Scrypto, is a game-changer for developers, making it simple and straightforward to build secure smart contracts. Our team has tried it out and is very convinced. We are looking forward to Babylon as the full functionality of our project and numerous other dApps will become available on Radix.

Radix has already demonstrated its capabilities by successfully replaying the entire 10-year transaction history of Bitcoin on their ledger with full validation in under 30 minutes, achieving over 1 million transactions per second.⁷ This is a remarkable achievement that sets a new record for decentralized ledgers and proves that Radix's technology can handle even the most demanding transactional applications. We can't wait to see where this technology takes us in the future.

References

UNESCO, Sinharaja Forest Reserve
"Sri Lanka's Sinharaja rainforest reserve to be quadrupled in size". Mongabay Environmental News. 2019-12-17.
Global Forest Watch
IUCN World Heritage Outlook: Sinharaja Forest Reserve (2020)
IQwiki: Radix (Accessed May 2023)
Zhou, Qiheng, et al. "Solutions to scalability of blockchain: A survey." Ieee Access 8 (2020): 16440-16455.
Radix (2019)

Sinharaja: Home of the Community Forest