Starter Kit. Idea 102 of 500. Cluster 5
Forest-bathing days in the hill and rainforest reserves, with a guide who knows the plants and their uses in Ayurveda
The mechanism, from the book
Ayurveda is a system of medicine the world already recognises and seeks out. The demand is there; what Sri Lanka needs is more of its own names, known and asked for abroad.
The first step
Find a guide who knows the plants of one forest reserve and their uses in Ayurveda, walk a 3-hour route with them, and write down 10 plants worth stopping for. Check what permission the reserve needs for a guided group. Then offer the walk to 2 guesthouses nearby at a price per head and count how many guests book in a month. Guests who ask for a longer day are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A visitor already staying near the hills or the rainforest who wants a slow day among the trees and to learn what grows there.
- What leaves today
- Visitors walk through the reserves without a guide, and the knowledge of the plants and their uses stays with the few who hold it instead of being sold as a day worth paying for.
Ask first
- Forest Department. Ask which reserves allow guided walking days and what permission a guide needs.
- Department of Ayurveda. Ask whether a guide explaining the plants' uses in Ayurveda needs any qualification from them.
Check before you spend
Permission to walk groups in the reserve, that the guide never offers treatment or medical advice, and insurance for guests on forest paths.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay for a guided day in the forest?
- How many guests can walk together without spoiling the quiet?
- Which hotels nearby would sell the day to their guests?
A comparison from the book
Sinharaja. Chapter Two
"Sinharaja alone, a rainforest you could walk across in a day, holds so many trees, birds and frogs found only there"
Researchers already cross the world for this forest; a guide who knows its plants sells the same day.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.