- Nature plays a considerable function in Sri Lanka’s tourist economy, and it works out beyond popular parks and wildlife tourist concentrated on keystone types such as elephants and leopards it’s understood for to consist of birdwatching.
- Birdwatching and photography are drivers of nature-based tourist, and in Sri Lanka’s deep south, the Kalametiya and Lunama lagoons, well-known as a bird-watching place, offer visitors the chance to see more than 160 bird types, consisting of winter season migrants.
- Despite the tourist market nosediving due to the twin results of COVID-19 and the collapse of the island’s economy in 2021-22, nature-based tourist continues to draw visitors, suggesting Sri Lanka’s appeal not just as a traveler location however likewise as a specific niche wildlife and nature-based tourist place.
- The Wildlife Department’s data reveal that 50% of foreign travelers to Sri Lanka check out a minimum of one national forest throughout their stay, showing the level of interest in the island’s biodiversity and nature reserves.
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka – Some 215 kilometers (130 miles) south of Colombo in the Hambantota district lies a unique, rarely took a trip, bird-watching place: Lunama and Kalametiya. A charming seaside wetland, this bird sanctuary acts as a home for a series of birds — wintering and endemic — and other animals, total with swaths of mangrove forests, comprehensive reedbeds, scrublands and salt marshes.
For the tourist, Kalametiya lagoon, joined by Lunama, supplies a serene background to view birds year-round — and to go paddle boating.
The dry zone in southern Sri Lanka has lots of places of environmental significance and together, Lunama and Kalametiya forms one. First developed in 1938, it is the island’s oldest bird sanctuary and inhabits a stunning location in between the 2 saltwater lagoons, near a mangrove overload and open plains.
This lagoon setting plays a crucial function in supporting the breeding nests of pelicans, herons, egrets and others in addition to wintering populations of migratory ducks and shorebirds. Recognizing Kalametiya and Lunama as crucial wildlife environments, especially for birds, a location of 700 hectares (1,730 acres) was stated a sanctuary in 1984 under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance.
Though it stays among Sri Lanka’s most remote nature reserves, it is amongst the most highly endowed bird environments on the island and home to lots of types of birds, amphibians, mammals, reptiles and bugs. A 2005 study taped an overall of 161 bird types there, consisting of 121 homeowners, 46 winter season migrants and one overseas marine bird. Among the resident birds, 5 are endemic while 5 are nationally threatened.
Winter draws lots of bird types to this biodiversity-rich location, which provides a perfect resting and feeding place. Plovers, terns, ducks, stints, sandpipers, terns and ducks are plentiful, and these winter season visitors draw lots of visitors thinking about ornithology and photography. Add to the going to feathered pals the lots of homeowners: cormorants, pelicans, egrets, storks, teals and tilts. It is a bird-watching paradise year-round and real paradise in the cooler months.
This paradisical background is improved by the neighboring Bundala National Park, a globally substantial wintering ground for migratory water birds where the going to shiny ibis was taped while nesting after a lapse of about 150 years.
A March 2023 study had a look at the impact of land-use modifications on bird variety and feeding guilds – or groups of unassociated types eating comparable foods – with the Kalametiya lagoon as the research study focus and highlighted how Kalametiya has actually ended up being an extremely threatened wetland, having actually gone through extreme hydraulic modifications in recent years due to an upstream watering job — Uda Walawe Irrigation and Resettlement Project (UWIRP).
The research study kept in mind how these modifications have actually caused the intrusion of the lagoon water by monospecific Sonneratia caseolaris, frequently referred to as mangrove apple, and Typha angustifolia reedbeds. Researchers studied the lagoon from January to April 2022 and came across 79 bird types and discovered bird neighborhoods to be richer and more varied in the angustifolia reedbeds compared to the mangrove-dominated locations.
They recommend that a management system targeted at bring back the lagoon to its previous state would bring substantial modifications to its avifaunal neighborhood. Kalametiya lagoon is already a modified environment brought on by human pressure. For 6 years, the mangrove forest had actually seen growth, increasing its cover from 77.5 hectares (191.5 acres) in 1956 to 385.3 hectares (952 acres) in 2016 while minimizing the lagoon water surface area by 86% in the exact same duration, suggesting the speed and degree of growth. These modifications have actually likewise been connected to UWIRP, which happened about 49 km (30 mi) upstream from the lagoon.
The birds of Kalametiya are environmentally flexible and function as crucial indication types due to their level of sensitivity for ecological modification and likewise their ecology being usually popular. While post-pandemic visitors increase, there is proof to recommend the requirement for much better management of the bird sanctuary.
Banner picture of a set of lower whistling ducks (Dendrocygna javanica), nighttime feeders unique to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, likewise referred to as Indian whistling ducks or lower whistling teals. Image thanks to Kanchana Handunnetti.
