The collective of organisations – Climate Action Now, Extinction Rebellion, Ananta Sustainables, and Gudppl – are co-hosting a wetlands cleanup held every last Sunday of the month from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Speaking with member of Extinction Rebellion Sri Lanka, Climate Action Now Sri Lanka Co-Founder, and Ananta Sustainables Operations and Business Development and Community Lead Melani Gunathilaka, she commented that their primary vision is to stop trash being collected in Bellanwila-Attidiya Wildlife Sanctuary to protect the biodiversity of the wetland ecosystem.
Organisers and volunteers clean Bellanwila-Attidiya Wildlife Sanctuary and make sure that the waste is sent for recycling and co-processing, making sure they are not added back to the environment. For that they have collaborated with Zero Trash and Yasantha Chamara, to whom they handover all recyclable waste (PET, HDPE, metal cans, and glass bottles) and the non-recyclables are handed over to Insee Ecocycle to use in co-processing.
Attidiya Wetland (Bellanwila-Aththidiya Wildlife Sanctuary)
Gunathilaka shared that the Bellanwila-Aththidiya Wildlife Sanctuary covers 3.72 sq. km and represents one of the last remaining protected wetland wildernesses located in the Colombo metropolitan area, which is the only capital city in the world to be recognised as a Ramsar Wetland City. This Wildlife Sanctuary was officially demarcated, declared, and gazetted as a Protected Area (PA) on 25 July 1990 (as per Extraordinary Gazette No. 620/9).
Despite a dangerous number of illegal activities continuously taking place here, as well as continued encroachment by illicit settlements, Bellanwila-Aththidiya still plays host to endangered species such as the Sri Lankan Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), the Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), the Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala), along with another 17 Mammalian and 166 Avian Species. This Wildlife Sanctuary also contains fragmented patches of a critically threatened forest type, which is classified as “Lowland Tropical Freshwater Swamp Forest”.
Colombo Wetland Complex
Colombo is connected to a system of lakes and wetlands known as the Colombo Wetland Complex (CWC). More than 8% (1900 hectares) out of the total city area (22,680 hectares) are contiguous wetland areas. In October 2018, Colombo received Ramsar accreditation, making it the first and only capital and South Asia’s only Wetland City to receive the accreditation.
Gunathilaka stated that their mission is making sure Colombo Wetland Complex is kept clean without regular trash dumping contributing Colombo to preserve Ramsar accreditation in 2025.
She said that the Wetland ecosystems of Colombo provides a number of ecosystem services to its residents including cooling the city, purifying water and air, flood protection, and improving quality of human life while being the home to over 280 species of animals and 250 species of plants, many of which are unique to wetland environments.
Colombo loses around 1.2% of its wetlands every year due to solid waste dumping, untreated domestic wastewater, invasive species, algal blooms downstream from farms, and indiscriminate land filling.
The process and how you can help
The cleanup is held on every last Sunday of the month from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and volunteers are asked to sanitise their hands and are given a pair of reusable gloves and gunny bags. Organisers will brief the volunteers on safety measures and on collecting segregated waste and the segregated waste bags are brought back to the collection point where each bag is weighed and recorded.
Brand audits are carried out for bags of PET collected and recorded – Gunathilaka shared that these brand audits serve multiple purposes, one of which is to understand consumer habits and also to add to the vastly lacking data archives in Sri Lanka with regards to waste.
She shared that they are hoping to get approval from the Department of Wildlife to put up signage to stop littering inside the wildlife sanctuary so this prevailing trash dumping issue will be solved for good. She also noted that the teams have managed to clean most of the waste that was collected by the roads, but are in need of following to collect the trash that is collected inside the marshes and to stop more trash being thrown into the wetland.
Hand held tools, shovels, industrial boots or safety suits, reusable gloves, gunny bags, and pool cleaning nets – if you are able to provide these resources for the volunteers, feel free to contact any one of the following organisations: Climate Action Now, Extinction Rebellion, Ananta Sustainables, or Gudppl.
