Department of Wildlife Conservation (Sri Lanka)


The Department of Wildlife Conservation is a non-ministerial government department in Sri Lanka. It is the government department responsible for maintaining national parks, nature reserves and wildlife in wilderness areas in Sri Lanka. Forest reserves and wilderness areas are maintained by the Department of Forest Conservation. The head of the department is the Director General of Wildlife Conservation, formally known as Warden. It was established in October 1949 with Captain Cyril Nicholas, MC as its first Warden.
WWW dwc.gov.lk

Personal

Headquarters

The department is headed by the Director General of Wildlife Conservation, with it headquarters located in Battaramulla. The head office is made up of several divisions covering operations and administration under the preview of Directors, deputy directors and assistant directors.

Field deployments

Each province as an assistant director assigned to it with an office located within the province. The Elephant Transit Home and Training Center has an assistant director in charge of each.
The department deploys a large number of field officers and personal to manage and protect the wildlife in the national parks. They have law enforcement powers under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance and the Fire Arms Ordinance. They operate range offices and beat offices.
Among the department’s early field officers was Game Ranger Liyanage John Stanley Fernando, who served at Yala National Park in the 1950s. He was photographed in 1958 with a rescued leopard cub, one of the earliest known visual records of wildlife rehabilitation and human–animal coexistence in Sri Lanka’s conservation history. The leopard cub was later transferred to the National Zoological Gardens in Dehiwala, marking early collaboration between the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Zoo in animal care and protection. The historic photograph is preserved in a private family archive and has been published on Wikimedia Commons.
The field carder grades include;
; Field carder

List of nature reserves

  • Vidataltivu Nature Reserve

Conservation centers under the Department