Country

Sri Lanka: 4 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Four ecoregions divide Sri Lanka along its famous wet-zone/dry-zone line. The island's north and east fall in the Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests, with the Deccan thorn scrub forests, a dryland ecoregion shared with southern India, reaching the driest northwest. The southwest quarter is the wet zone: Sri Lanka lowland rain forests near sea level and Sri Lanka montane rain forests in the central highlands, both tropical moist broadleaf systems concentrated in a small area. The whole island is warm year-round, so the gardening variable is water, not temperature. Wet-zone growers work with near-continuous rainfall and can grow rainforest and montane species; dry-zone planting turns on the monsoon calendar and drought-tolerant natives.