POLONNARUWA, Sri Lanka — For centuries, Sri Lanka’s ancient civilization diverted river water to large reservoirs and man-made canals for agriculture. After the collapse of the island’s hydraulic civilization about…
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- On June 15, 2020, Sri Lanka’s wildlife and nature lovers were finally able to gain access to several national parks, which had been closed for three…
KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka -- With the COVID-19 pandemic contained following a strict two-month lockdown, Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions in late May 2020. But now, several farming communities are facing a…
HIYARE, Sri Lanka — Bouts of panic buying quickly cleared supermarket and store shelves with each lifting of Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 curfew to allow residents to stock up on essentials.…
BUNDALA, Sri Lanka – The glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is a fairly rare but regular winter visitor to Sri Lanka, seen at the Bundala National Park in the island’s south…
COLOMBO — On May 29, a vanishingly rare black leopard — an actual black panther — died at a government wildlife treatment facility in Sri Lanka. It had been brought…
COLOMBO — Legend has it that a group of pygmy hominids known as Nittaewo — meaning “long clawed” in the local language — lived in Sri Lanka up until the…
COLOMBO — The killing of a young forest ranger by suspected poachers has underscored that illegal hunting in Sri Lanka, and the bushmeat trade it feeds, hasn’t stopped during the…
Kelanimulla is one of the last remaining wetlands in Sri Lanka’s western district of Colombo, and is a refuge for urban wildlife, including the elusive fishing cat. The wetland absorbs…
COLOMBO — On April 22, Sri Lanka eased its nationwide lockdown that was imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That sparked a buying rush for essential goods, primarily food.…
KALPITIYA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka is known for the blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) that occur throughout the year in the waters around this Indian Ocean island. But a lesser-known…
TISSAMAHARAMA, Sri Lanka – Yala National Park in southern Sri Lanka is the most visited wilderness area in the country. From the nearby town of Tissamaharama, would-be visitors leave before…
YALA, Sri Lanka — Gemunu is one of about 350 elephants in Yala National Park, the most visited in Sri Lanka. It’s thanks to these visitors that he’s developed a…
COLOMBO — She’s 80 years old, but Baby Nona can still recall the day she contracted chickenpox as a teenager. Her mother spread neem leaves, from the Azadirachta indica tree,…
COLOMBO — For Nilantha Kodithuwakku, a naturalist involved in whale and dolphin-watching operations, it’s always a spectacular scene to witness pods of playful dolphins jumping and spinning in the air.…
COLOMBO — Adam’s Peak is Sri Lanka’s fourth-highest mountain and considered a holy site for people of multiple faiths, who flock there in their thousands during the pilgrimage season from…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka plans to quadruple the size of the protected area inside its last viable rainforest, in a nod to the ecological significance of the region. The Sinharaja…
COLOMBO — The Sri Lankan Navy has rescued 32 sea turtles that were likely being reared for their flesh, highlighting just one of the key threats to turtles migrating through…
COLOMBO — Uthpala Adaranga, a ranger with Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), was initially doubtful about the call he received of a seal spotted near Unawatuna, off the…
COLOMBO — With its spectacular green coloration and reddish eyes set behind a knob-like snout, the hump-nosed lizard (Lyriocephalus scutatus) is probably Sri Lanka’s most charismatic reptile. But that beauty…
COLOMBO — Wildlife conservation managers have long known that to protect a species, it helps if the animal is what’s known as charismatic: rare, endangered, beautiful, impressive, dangerous, or a…
Decades ago along the beaches of Sri Lanka, fish sellers used bicycles to transport their catch, including sharks. It was said the sharks were often so big that, when tied…
COLOMBO — When forest officer Anura Herath carried out a raid in July 2012, he was ready to seize high-value timber. But instead he discovered strips of blackish bark, stems…
In the early 1980s, a common sight along the still unpolluted beaches of southern Sri Lanka was that of fisherfolk sun-drying small, blackish, cylindrical objects. They called them sea slugs,…
When a team of herpetologists led by Mendis Wickramasinghe found a group of webless shrub frogs in a remote montane ecosystem in Sri Lanka in 2010, it was an encounter…
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A crackdown on unregulated explosives in the aftermath of deadly terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka may help in the fight against illegal blast fishing in the…
KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka — Residents of the farming village of Irudeniyagama in Sri Lanka’s North Western province were taken by surprise last week when they saw a wild elephant calf…
Malaka Rodrigo is a naturalist with an IT background that took environmental
journalism in 2007 to follow his belief ‘conservation through awareness’. He won many awards for his work and writes extensively on biodiversity, wildlife, oceans, water, climate change and environmental issues.
