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Lahugala National Park

On January 30 the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) held a ceremony near Arugambay in south-east Sri Lanka to mark the reopening of the Kumana and Lahugala National Parks. Closed since 2005 due to the war, the reopening of the wildlife sanctuaries symbolises a return to normalcy for the country’s parks system. With nearby Yala National Park already open and the rest of the country’s 20 national parks scheduled to open by April, it won’t be long before locals and foreigners can again visit some of the country’s most beautiful areas and see its most astonishing animals in their natural habitats.

Because of their location in the formerly LTTE-controlled east, Kumana and Lahugala have been inaccessible since 1985 except for a brief period in 2002-2003 during the ceasefire — too short a time for any construction to take place. Before retreating from the park in 2008, Tamil Tiger cadres destroyed what was left of Kumana’s infrastructure, including its bungalows and office buildings.

Then, last July, the DWC that comes under the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, finally received approval to begin renovating the park. This required rebuilding the park’s neglected infrastructure, especially the access roads. The Lahugala sanctuary was devastated by the 2004 tsunami but has almost fully recovered and is now, according to a press release from the DWC, “open to an influx of both local and foreign visitors.”

Although the DWC had hoped to open Kumana (formerly known as Yala East National Park) in November last year, a severe drought that began in September delayed construction. Working with government and non-government organisations, the Ministry concentrated on providing water to animals in the park to keep them alive. The heavy November rains that followed the drought brought problems of their own: all the rainwater washed away much of the recent road construction, forcing the Ministry to spend another four weeks repairing the damage. Although more roads are scheduled to open in February and March, the main road through the park is now open for traffic.

Director General of Wild Life Conservation Ananda Wijesooriya said that the next few months is the best time to visit the parks.
“The birds will start nesting in Kumana in March and April — these parks are very famous for local and migratory birds,” Wijesooriya said. “At any time of the day and any time of the year you can see elephants in Lahugala.”

Wijesooriya admitted that he didn’t know how many people would visit the newly-opened sanctuaries. Because of their remote location, Kumana and Lahugala were never as popular as Continue reading ‘Lanka’s National Wildlife Sanctuaries Opening Again’