Life Insurance for employees of the DWC

Insurance scheme covering 2500 employees of DWC

Responsible for maintaining Sri Lanka’s national parks, nature reserves and wildlife in wilderness areas, the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) was established in 1949 with the vision of “Conservation of Wildlife Heritage for Present & Future Generations”. With 62 Sanctuaries, 26 National Parks, 9 Nature Reserves and 3 Strict Nature Reserves under their purview, the employees of the Department of Wildlife Conservation certainly have their work cut out for them. Human population expansion and growing development goals have brought on an inevitable conflict between people and wildlife and the DWC are tasked with solving the much talked about Human Elephant Conflict (HEC), Human Leopard Conflict, Human Crocodile Conflict to name a few. It is often a thankless job on the front-lines, as any DWC field officer will attest. For some field-officers; a workday may drag on to 24 hours and they may be required to put their lives at risk tackling illegal activities such as poaching raids. A Tragically a number of DWC staff have died or been injured, during active service.  8 department officers have been killed and a further 54 injuries have been reported over the last 5 years.

The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) are proud to initiate Sri Lanka’s first ever Life Insurance Policy for the employees of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC). The much anticipated program will offer Life, Permanent and Partially Disability Cover to all DWC employees from November 1 st , 2020 until Oct 31 st , 2021 and the WNPS hopes to continue the policy in the following years. The cover is for LKR 500,000 per incident and in order for an employee to be covered, the incident would have to occur during active duty of the DWC employee. Up to 10 incidents per year will be covered by the program.

The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society was instrumental in the formation of the Department of Wildlife Conservation over 70 years ago, so it is with great pride that the WNPS embarks on this new journey with the DWC, with the common goal of protecting Sri Lanka’s rich biodiversity.

WNPS wishes to thank the following organizations and individuals who were instrumental in donating towards the insurance premium: Wealth Trust Securities Limited, Capital Alliance Group, Mercantile Investments Limited, Eco Maximus, Chena Huts – Yala, Tharindu Wijeyesena & Roshaan Hettiaratchi.