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The coconut palm, gracing the beaches surrounding Sri Lanka, whispers
a welcome to visitors to the island's shores a fitting introduction to the "Emerald
Isle". |
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| Flourishing throughout the country and occupying approximately 450, 472
hectares (nearly 40% of its cultivated area), the coconut tree botanically known as
"Cocos Nucifera" is found in its greatest concentration within the "Coconut
Triangle" formed by the commercial capital, Colombo and the principal towns of
Puttalam and Kurunegala. |
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| Just as the coconut tree is grown in all parts of the island, all parts of the tree
are useful providing food, fuel, timber by products and the raw material for numerous
handicrafts and industries. One of the major raw materials is coir fiber. |
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| Extracted from the coconut's protective husk, coir fiber enjoys the
unique properties of being the longest, natural fiber as well as the strongest in terms of
twist resistance. It falls into two main categories - brown and white fiber, with
approximately 80% and 20% respectively, of the world's coir fiber demand, supplied by Sri
Lanka. |
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| The supply of coir fiber and fiber based products has been a widespread
cottage industry in Sri Lanka for centuries. The tradition continues to this day, with a
significant portion of the country's fiber output being manually extracted and processed,
through modern machinery and methods are being introduced for large scale commercial
production to keep up with the increasing demand. |
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