On the forested ridges that fringe the Sinharaja Rainforest — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Sri Lanka’s last viable tropical rainforest — the scent of damp earth mingles with the sharper aroma of freshly tilled soil. The cause? Expanding tea plantations that, according to environmentalists, are rapidly devouring the island’s last bastions of biodiversity.

“People see the lush green of tea and think life,” says Sajeewa Chamikara, environmental activist and convener of the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR). “But what they’re really looking at is a green desert — silent, sterile, and deadly for the forest species it replaced.”

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