Keeping everyone informed
Lanka Ratne Martin Wijesinghe, the legend of Sinharaja passed away last night after a brief illness. He was born on a Christmas eve - 24 th December, 1939.
Sri Lanka’s current mangrove cover, estimated to be 15-000 19,000 Hectares, is a mere ~ 0.3% of the total landmass and is critically low, putting the island at risk form the impact of climate change and natural disasters such as storm surges and Tsunamis. Mangroves are an integral part of our forests and constitute about 2% of Sri Lanka’s total forest cover - they are very much a part of the fast dwindling 17% of our primary forests.
Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) is honored to be able to gift the field officers of Udawalawe covering the beat offices of Kalthota, Maw Ara, Galkatukanda and Weheramankada, with special uniforms designed by the WNPS and supported by Mercantile Investments and Finance PLC, Bam Holdings Group, MAS Holdings, Dynawash and a host of Members and Non-members who contributed generously. The Society appreciates the continued support of its membership towards different project and can’t be happier that non-members are also contributing positively to the conservation efforts of the Society. A distinctive feature of these newly designed uniforms was use of Natural dye extracted from tea leaves by Dynawash, to dye the trousers.
WNPS in collaboration with the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) Gal Oya team, are currently undertaking a project to cleanup Senanayake Samudraya of discarded fishing nets and other debris leftover by fishermen, which are posing a serious threat to local wildlife.
Human Wildlife Conflict is undoubtedly the biggest conservation challenge facing Sri Lanka’s flora and fauna to date. Even though the conflict between humans and major species like elephant and leopard takes center stage in Sri Lanka, the conflict goes beyond that and impacts many other wildlife species. Day by day the competition for shared space between humans and wildlife grows more intense due to human population expansion and encroachment into wildlife habitat, deforestation, habitat fragmentation, live-stock grazing in protected areas and other land-use issues driven by man’s selfish and insatiable habits.
The WNPS Human-Elephant Coexistence Subcommittee’s 'For the Sri Lankan Elephant' Photography Competition was created to provide a platform to focus the camera lens and with it our attention, on this unique and majestic species we are fortunate to share our land with, whilst also drawing attention to the many challenges they face due to human-elephant conflict.