COLOMBO — Himesh Dilruwan Jayasinghe was on a butterfly chase in Sri Lanka’s Knuckles Mountains, in the Indian Ocean island’s central highlands. He’d tracked down a rare butterfly known as…
COLOMBO — The leaf litter and other decaying plant matter that carpet Sri Lanka’s lowland rainforests are potential lurking points for numerous blood-sucking leeches and hideouts of some venomous snakes.…
COLOMBO — In its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, Sri Lanka is home to an abundance of coastal and marine resources. And while national policies and development visions already…
MANNAR, Sri Lanka — Born in the frozen Arctic tundra, a population of Heuglin’s gull (Larus fuscus heuglini) heads to tropical Sri Lanka every year during the harsh Northern Hemisphere…
NUWARA ELIYA, Sri Lanka — Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its natural significance, the Peak Wilderness rainforest in Sri Lanka’s central highlands is a difficult terrain to explore.…
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sunitha Rathnayake, a homemaker in southern Sri Lanka, was down to the last of her salt and planned to order some more from an online grocery…
MATARA, Sri Lanka — The Polhena reef and the surrounding shallow seas in southern Sri Lanka are home to a number of marine turtles that stay there year round. Randunu…
GALLE, Sri Lanka — Buses are the most common mode of public transport in Sri Lanka. But after thousands of trips, facilitating millions of commuter rides over their operating lifetime,…
The Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka has faced many maritime disasters over the years, but none as bad as the recent incident with the MV X-Press Pearl, a freighter…
PUTTALAM, Sri Lanka — Samith Fernando runs a tour boat service in Puttalam Lagoon, a scenic spot about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s commercial capital. In…
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — The first time Mahinda Samarawickrama, a farmer in Hambantota district, southern Sri Lanka, was attacked by an elephant, he’d gone down to the village reservoir at…
COLOMBO — Up to 100 turtles and 20 dolphins have washed up dead on Sri Lanka’s beaches in the past month, as experts fear a link to the leak of…
COLOMBO — Authorities in Sri Lanka have called for a renewed focus on conserving the island’s rich coastal ecosystems, identifying the “blue economy” as key to the nation’s sustainable development.…
COLOMBO — Thor is an 11-year-old, well-built male lion at Sri Lanka’s National Zoological Gardens in the Colombo suburb of Dehiwala. He’s something of an icon at the zoo, famed…
COLOMBO — Folklore has it that babies were delivered by storks, who carried them in slings from their beaks and left them at the door of unsuspecting couples. But the…
COLOMBO — Satellite images have captured a silvery slick spreading on the surface of the sea from the burnt-out wreck of a cargo ship that sank off Colombo earlier this…
COLOMBO — Along the shoreline north of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s commercial capital, the beaches are littered with millions of tiny white pellets, each about the size of a peppercorn. “The…
COLOMBO — The X-Press Pearl cargo ship that caught fire off western Sri Lanka has begun to sink, raising alarms over oil and chemical spills that could have potentially devastating…
COLOMBO — Authorities in Sri Lanka say they have largely contained a fire on board a cargo ship off the island’s west coast, but now face the task of cleaning…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s fast-flowing freshwater streams are home to a variety of beautiful fish, which, as a rule, swiftly swim away if you dip your feet into the water.…
A tropical continental island located close to the Indian subcontinent, endemic fauna and flora form an integral part of Sri Lanka’s rich biodiversity. The island’s biodiversity is globally recognized for…
COLOMBO — Environmentalists have welcomed the Sri Lankan government’s surprise decision to ban palm oil imports into the country and raze existing plantations, but others say the science justifying the…
COLOMBO — He may have had short tusks, but at nearly 3 meters (10 feet) tall, Revatha was the dominant bull in his home range of Kalawewa in Sri Lanka’s…
UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka — Earlier this month, more than 300 people gathered near the borders of the Dahaiyagala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka’s Uva province armed with axes,…
COLOMBO — With every passing year, the impacts of climate change are becoming more serious and frequent in Sri Lanka, according to experts, officials, and the affected communities on the…
COLOMBO — Scientists have been writing obituaries for the Sri Lankan legume tree since 1982, when the last known specimen of this endemic plant died. In 2006 Sri Lanka declared…
COLOMBO — Sixteen-year-old Pasindu Dilshan from Padukka, a small town in Sri Lanka’s Western province, has always been fascinated by the study of nature. When the COVID-19 lockdown left him…
COLOMBO — As Sri Lanka’s Forest Department embarks on a reforestation campaign in an area previously cleared for new settlements, environmental activists and lawyers have hailed the unprecedented court ruling…
COLOMBO — With a single notification, Sri Lankan authorities have recently transferred the guardianship of forests lying outside protected areas to local administrators, with a view to increasing the island’s…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka has sent back the first batch of hundreds of containers of waste to the U.K., becoming the latest nation in the Global South to push back…
