Hello,
I have just received my copy of LORIS (The Journal of the
Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka, WLNPS)
vol.21 no.5, June 1998. On pages 189-190 is an article by Thilo
W. Hoffmann (Chairman, Ceylon Bird Club) entitled " More Ramsar
Sites needed ". (Thilo is a Swiss national who has just
retired to Switzerland after being resident in Sri Lanka for
several decades and serving on the Committee of the WLNPS for
some 37 years.)
Sri Lanka has one Ramsar site so far - that of Bundala National
Park on the south coast. This National Park is extremely likely
to be adversely affected by a giant oil refinery proposed to be
constructed near its boundary and by other development projects
scheduled for the south.
The article proposes " that there is now the urgent need to
designate and declare additional wetlands under the Ramsar Treaty "
and lists some 13 " most obvious candidates ". Further details
may be obtained , as required, from the article in question.
Elsewhere in this issue (i.e. pages 204 to 209) Hoffmann reports
also on the 15th Waterfowl Census of Sri Lanka carried out this
year in January . The total number of birds counted was
about 150,000 which included 97 species.
Regards,
Rohan H. Wickramasinghe,
Institute for Tropical Environmental Studies,
41 Flower Road,
Colombo 7,
Sri Lanka
(email:
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