As part of QRFN’s 10-year anniversary celebration, we invited several conservation partners to share updates on the impact of projects supported through the fund. In this video, Preserving Land and Nature Trust (PLANT) reflects on how early QRFN support helped launch a pioneering model of private land conservation and habitat restoration in Sri Lanka.
QRFN was among PLANT’s earliest supporters, providing funding for three projects: Protecting Endemic Species in Sri Lankan Lowland Rainforests, Protecting the TERN Research Forest, and Expanding the Budunwela Forest Corridor. The first grant protected a 17-hectare forest harboring more than 140 species, including 45 threatened species, helping demonstrate the potential of private conservation and forest-corridor restoration in Sri Lanka. Subsequent investments in the Budunwela landscape enabled PLANT to move quickly to secure vulnerable forest parcels threatened by mining and ongoing fragmentation. Together, these projects expanded a critical wildlife corridor linking Sri Lanka’s wet and dry zones, protecting habitat for species such as the Sri Lankan Leopard (EN), Asian Elephant (EN), Indian Pangolin (EN), and the endemic Serendib Scops Owl.
QRFN’s support was catalytic at multiple levels. In each case, rapid funding helped secure high-priority properties before they could be lost, while also helping unlock additional support from other conservation partners. More broadly, these early grants helped validate PLANT’s vision of private land conservation at a time when the model was largely unproven in Sri Lanka. That early support proved transformative. Today, PLANT works across 35 locations, collaborates with more than 40 partners, protects habitat for more than 1,300 species, including over 130 Critically Endangered and Endangered species, and has established more than 50 kilometers of forest corridors.
As PLANT Chairman Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne reflects:
“When almost no one had faith in our vision, it was QRFN who demonstrated confidence in us by funding our very first land purchase, which proved catalytic. It became a trigger point for other donors and partners to feel confident about the project and our ambitions. Their trust has helped transform a national agenda.”