Beddangana Wetland Park

Work Areas

Main CEPA work area

The park offers pre-registration services on guided tours for various groups, wide range of educational activities and workshops for school and university students, awareness programs, site cleaning camps, tree planting campaign with local NGOs, teacher training workshops and partnership programs.

Top three successes

The school and public awareness programs has become more effective as it has significantly increased the involvement of general public in conservation related activities which is organized by the park staff and other organizations. And the eyes of the public have focused to pay more attention on taking measures for wetland conservation in community level.
The park has produced a documentary film with the involvement of the experts in the field to highlight the biodiversity and the importance of protecting the associate
ecosystem around Beddagana Wetland Park. This has become highly successful in passing the conservation message to public during awareness programs.
The park has managed to establish a butterfly garden, which is rich with number of butterflies and with a good collection of
host plants and nectar plants. This also consists of display boards showing the life cycle, the descriptions on butterfly species and important plant species, which gives the basic biological knowledge on butterflies to those who visit the park and provide guidelines on how to make space for butterflies in their own home gardens.

Top three challenges

One of the major issues in the park is, during the dry period, some of the marshy areas get dry out as the park is in high ground with respect to the water level in Diyawanna Lake.
When the mud flats disappear, it is badly affect the aquatic life in the park and the numbers of migratory birds reduce.
Moreover, because of the unbalance water system, the over growth of reeds occurs in some areas of the lily-filled ponds and become a problem to aquatic birds. Hence, measures have to implement to retain water during this period to support the aquatic life.
In addition, vast area of the wetland covers with Invasive plant species Annona glabra commonly known as Pond Apple that prevents the growth of native plant species.
Removal of this is a difficult task because an aquatic life has already established associate with this habitat. The effective replacement of Annona with native plants is a challenge.
However, this has to carry out with a well-planned approach with the time without disturbing the existing system.
Intrusion of polluted water in to the park from the urbanized area through canals is another issue that has to address.