Bellanwila Attidiya Sanctuary
The Bellanwila–Attidiya Sanctuary (Sinhala: බෙල්ලන්විල අත්තිඩිය අභයභූමිය) is one of the Sanctuaries in Sri Lanka . It is situated near Bellanwila Viharaya in Colombo District. The sanctuary is among the most important of the few remaining wetlands around Colombo (Green, 1990). History The area where the present sanctuary has been established was agricultural land used to cultivate rice. However, since 1980 it gradually transformed into marshland (Green, 1990). On 25 July 1990, the Department of Wildlife Conservation designated this area as a sanctuary under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance through a government Gazette (Extraordinary) notification published under the no. 620/9. The Bellanwila-Attidiya Sanctuary has also been recognized as a wetland of international importance. It was listed in the Directory of Asian Wetlands by the IUCN in 1989 (Henkanaththegedara et al., 2005; Karunarathna et al., 2009).
The wetland Situated within the low country wet zone, the wetland has a tr…
