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Expanding and developing Wilpattu National Park, its many attractions

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Mana Villu, March 1969 -Elephants feeding grass in Mana Villu (Wilpattu National Park, Department of Wildlife Conservation)

Excerpted from the authorized biography of Thilo Hoffmann by Douglas. B. Ranasinghe

Wilpattu is the largest National Park of Sri Lanka, with extensive parts in both the North Western and North Central Provinces. A large section of the present Park was established as a Game Sanctuary in 1909, and became the Wilpattu National Park in 1938.

Along its periphery were several Intermediate Zones and Sanctuaries, with a lower status of protection. By the mid 1960s Thilo strongly held the view that these were outdated and had to be incorporated into the respective National Parks, if they were not to be lost as conservation areas. Though they were effective buffer zones, in the eyes of most people they served only the interests of the small shooting fraternity.

Through the WNPS, as its Secretary, Thilo managed to convince the authorities, and in 1967 most Intermediate Zones, including those of Wilpattu South and Wilpattu East, were incorporated into the adjacent National Parks. Also absorbed into National Parks were most of the protected areas with the status of Sanctuary which bordered on them, as these had allowed free access.

Thilo believed that the large and very important Wilpattu West Sanctuary, bordering the sea on its further side, had to be amalgamated with the Park. During his term as President, the Society took up the idea and steadily agitated for it. The area could not be incorporated at first due to the presence in it of a few privately owned blocks of land, at Pomparippu, Kumburavi, Pallakandel and Vellamundel.

By the competent efforts of the then Director of the Wildlife Department, Mr S. D. Saparamadu, land in exchange was found at Vanativillu which satisfied the owners. (See also p.99.) Thilo’s proposal was thus put into effect. It has been described as one of the most important measures since the establishment of National Reserves.

This permitted the completion of Wilpattu National Park, by the relevant Gazette notification, dated December 9, 1973. Today, the total area of the park is 1,309 square km with a sea frontage of 48 km.

During that decade and the next Thilo proposed the extension of the Park into the sea to include Portugal and Dutch Bays and the Karaitivu Islands. This measure would have protected a valuable marine habitat, as well as the threatened sea animal, the dugong, now practically extinct in Sri Lankan waters.

This entire area has a very fragile ecosystem, which is unable to survive the massive human interference and touristic development which has recently been planned for it. Its protection should be strengthened, not weakened.The best known features of the Park are the villus, which contribute much to its beauty. Forty-four have been identified, of which 27 may be called small lakes. Thilo explains:

“The villus in Wilpattu are very shallow depressions of the land in which surface run-off water collects. Most of them have a natural overflow. For example, these flows are visible between Timbirivila and Borupanvila, and from Kumbukvila to Kokkari Villu. The only villus with no such overflow are Lunuvila and Kokkari, and at Dematavila it occurs only in very wet seasons.

“Rainwater, which when it falls is similar to distilled water, collects from the soil during run-off mineral salts containing calcium, potassium, sodium, etc. and carries the dissolved salts into the villus. During the drought much of the water evaporates. This occurs year after year. In the few villus which have no overflow the water becomes increasingly salty. In the others during the rainy season the surplus water washes out the excess minerals.

“Some time ago a foreign team of researchers wrote a paper on Wilpattu, in which they said that villus are caused by groundwater seepage, and that they are groundwater lakes. This wrong statement has entered the international literature.

“Just near Panikkar Villu there is a 40-foot-deep well, which in 1976 had only a handful of water collected in a depression at its bottom; we used it for drinking and washing during our weekend visits. At the villu there was yet some open water surrounded by deep mud. This shows that the water in the villu has no connection with groundwater. Villus are not more than two feet deep. Their bottoms are covered with a thick layer of soft mud, over an impermeable layer of clay, which prevents percolation in either direction.”

Thilo has a special liking for this Park, which he knows intimately. He was much concerned in 1976 when an unprecedented drought struck it. In consultation with the Wildlife Department the Society worked out an action plan to mitigate the effects. Again, Thilo explains:

“The drought at Wilpattu caused most of the villus to dry out completely. The large Kokkari Villu was reduced to a small pond with a fringe of deep black mud. I realized later that animals, especially sambhur, did not so much die from lack of water but from drinking toxic salt water when only the salty villus Kokkari and Lunuvila still held any water. Other animals died getting stuck in the deep mud which surrounded the drying-out villus.

“During any drought elephants and bears dig their own waterholes, elephants with the help of their trunks and bears by digging with their forepaws. Other animals such as barking and mouse deer, mongooses, etc. make use of these holes. Elephants can dig down to 2-3 feet. Bear dig to 4-5 feet down in sandy soils. But in 1976 the drought was so severe that the water table had gone down well below these levels.

“Therefore, we dug a number of water holes and managed to get water at seven to eight feet in sandy areas, e.g. near Manikapola Uttu. Holes were also dug by us at Dangaha and Etambagaha Uraniyas and at Kina Uttu which had gone dry. Water bowlers were brought up from Colombo and filled at Kala Oya. We then regularly filled oil drums cut in half lengthwise and buried all over the park in the dried-up villus. A. Baur and Co. Ltd contributed generously towards this project. Every Friday evening after work I drove up to Wilpattu and returned to office on Monday mornings. On Saturdays and Sundays we worked hard to provide relief I submitted a written report on each visit.”

Dr C. G. Uragoda in his book Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka (1994) writes:

“With the help of bowsers and tractors some 60,000 gallons of water were made available to animals in August, September and early October when fortunately the rain came. ‘The President Mr. Hoffmann personally supervised this major undertaking, spending almost every weekend in the Park.”

An interesting feature was the discovery at two places far apart, Nelum Wila and Mana Wila, of the remnants of many golden palm-civets. They are mainly nocturnal and thus rarely seen; they had been killed by leopards.

Thilo also noted that spotted deer can stand extreme droughts. In the Western sector of the Park these animals were in fine condition despite the total lack of water for weeks and miles around. Obviously they obtained sufficient water from the early morning moisture condensed on grasses and leaves.

During droughts elephants and buffaloes move to permanent sources of water, such as rivers.

Buffaloes were quite numerous in Wilpattu. The existence in Sri Lanka of the true wild buffalo is controversial; most are feral. Farmers in jungle areas would allow their animals to freely roam in the forests and open spaces, where they would mingle and mate with the wild stock.

They had wooden bells tied to their necks so that they could be found again. These were made of hollowed out blocks of the very hard and dark red palu wood (rarely also satin and other hard woods) with clappers of deer horn and the owner’s initials or brand marks carved in them. During the recent lengthy periods of abandonment of the Park the buffaloes of Wilpattu were nearly exterminated.

For decades, peril from man has threatened the Park. An ancient Dutch track, very rarely used, traversed the coastal section of the Wilpattu complex between the rivers Kala Oya in the south and Modaragam Aru in the north. This is an area of special importance. It provides a link to the sea for the rest of the Park, and is the abode of the elephants of Wilpattu.

In 1961 there was a proposal by the Army to rebuild the road. This would have severely affected the entire Wilpattu National Park. As a result of representations made by the Society the proposal was dropped. In 1982 a new wide Army road was built further west from Elavankulam to Mail Villu. The Society protested against it successfully.

The author learnt of the following detail not through Thilo but another person present on the occasion. This is an example of information forgotten or modestly omitted by him: see Chapter XI. The Society’s then President, Dr Ranjen Fernando and Thilo, its last, were called to a meeting of the Defence chiefs by President J. R. Jayewardene. The Army Commander spoke of the desirability of the road.

Thilo believed, then and afterwards, that a coastal road beween Mannar and Puttalam would help the LTTE more than the Army. With the President’s permission he put one question to the General: “Who controls the road between Mannar and Wilpattu?” The answer was: “The LTTE.” Jayewardene immediately ordered that the road through Wilpattu be abandoned.

In March 1985 Thilo and Mae drove to Wilpattu – as often before. When they did this they never neglected to pay homage to God Aiyanar in the customary manner. Mae insisted on it. The Deity’s domain is the northern jungles which are entered on crossing the bridge over the Deduru Oya north of Chilaw. By smashing a coconut at the little shrine here and by placing a freshly broken twig in the fork of a tree the God’s protection is solicited.

On two fateful days they were the only visitors in the Park. The first evening, Thilo saw and photographed on the beach at Karuwalakuda a group of men with fishing boats and nets. The episode is described in the Foreword to this book (page xi).

It was an LTTE killer squad, led by a man called Victor, which had come from Mannar by boat. During the night they moved through the Kala Oya estuary to Elavankulam where they hijacked the early morning bus. Driving through Puttalam the armed group reached Anuradhapura around 6 a.m. There they massacred a large number of civilians including Buddhist monks. They then sped back to Nochchiyagama, and across the Park to Pukulam in its northwestern corner, where around noon the same boats waited to take them back to Mannar, then in Tiger hands.

Within Wilpattu they murdered in cold blood over 20 staff and labourers. Range Assistant H. H. Bandara and Bungalow Keeper Tennakoon were forced to guide them, and both then shot dead on the beach.

The Hoffmanns were staying at the Talawila bungalow. Around lunch time on the second day the news of the massacres and the presence of the Tigers in Wilpattu reached it by radio. The staff and some Park workers there panicked, and pleaded that they should all flee in the Land Rover to Aliyawadiya, on the Kala Oya, many miles south.

After a difficult journey over long-abandoned jungle tracks, which Thilo fortunately knew, via Galge Viharaya and Makalanmaduwa, they reached their goal in the evening. They crossed the river, and found shelter for the night at the Kala Oya Hotel (now no more). A curfew had been declared in the District.

The following morning Thilo went back, now via the main road, to Talawila, to retrieve some overlooked items. At the Hunuwilagama entrance to the Park he had to await the arrival, 24 hours after the events described, of army and police personnel, and then he followed their convoy as far as the centre of the Park.

Mae was convinced that God Aiyanar had protected them.

(To be continued)

During the years that followed, the Park was closed and abandoned. Animals in it were slaughtered, especially buffaloes, wild pig, sambhur and deer. All the visitors’ and staff bungalows were ransacked and largely destroyed by roaming poachers, criminals and timber thieves.


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Features

Ranking public services with AI — A roadmap to reviving institutions like SriLankan Airlines

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6 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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Efficacy measures an organisation’s capacity to achieve its mission and intended outcomes under planned or optimal conditions. It differs from efficiency, which focuses on achieving objectives with minimal resources, and effectiveness, which evaluates results in real-world conditions. Today, modern AI tools, using publicly available data, enable objective assessment of the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s government institutions.

Among key public bodies, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka emerges as the most efficacious, outperforming the Department of Inland Revenue, Sri Lanka Customs, the Election Commission, and Parliament. In the financial and regulatory sector, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) ranks highest, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Among state-owned enterprises, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) leads in efficacy, followed by Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank. Other institutions assessed included the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and the Sri Lanka Transport Board. At the lower end of the spectrum were Lanka Sathosa and Sri Lankan Airlines, highlighting a critical challenge for the national economy.

Sri Lankan Airlines, consistently ranked at the bottom, has long been a financial drain. Despite successive governments’ reform attempts, sustainable solutions remain elusive.

Globally, the most profitable airlines operate as highly integrated, technology-enabled ecosystems rather than as fragmented departments. Operations, finance, fleet management, route planning, engineering, marketing, and customer service are closely coordinated, sharing real-time data to maximise efficiency, safety, and profitability.

The challenge for Sri Lankan Airlines is structural. Its operations are fragmented, overly hierarchical, and poorly aligned. Simply replacing the CEO or senior leadership will not address these deep-seated weaknesses. What the airline needs is a cohesive, integrated organisational ecosystem that leverages technology for cross-functional planning and real-time decision-making.

The government must urgently consider restructuring Sri Lankan Airlines to encourage:

=Joint planning across operational divisions

=Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making

=Continuous cross-functional consultation

=Collaborative strategic decisions on route rationalisation, fleet renewal, partnerships, and cost management, rather than exclusive top-down mandates

Sustainable reform requires systemic change. Without modernised organisational structures, stronger accountability, and aligned incentives across divisions, financial recovery will remain out of reach. An integrated, performance-oriented model offers the most realistic path to operational efficiency and long-term viability.

Reforming loss-making institutions like Sri Lankan Airlines is not merely a matter of leadership change — it is a structural overhaul essential to ensuring these entities contribute productively to the national economy rather than remain perpetual burdens.

By Chula Goonasekera – Citizen Analyst

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Features

Why Pi Day?

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6 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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International Day of Mathematics falls tomorrow

The approximate value of Pi (π) is 3.14 in mathematics. Therefore, the day 14 March is celebrated as the Pi Day. In 2019, UNESCO proclaimed 14 March as the International Day of Mathematics.

Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians figured out that the circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times its diameter. But they could not come up with an exact value for this ratio although they knew that it is a constant. This constant was later named as π which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.

Archimedes

It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes (250 BC) who was able to find an upper bound and a lower bound for this constant. He drew a circle of diameter one unit and drew hexagons inside and outside the circle such that the sides of each hexagon touch the sides of the circle. In mathematics the circle passing through all vertices of a polygon is called a ‘circumcircle’ and the largest circle that fits inside a polygon tangent to all its sides is called an ‘incircle’. The total length of the smaller hexagon then becomes the lower bound of π and the length of the hexagon outside the circle is the upper bound. He realised that by increasing the number of sides of the polygon can make the bounds get closer to the value of Pi and increased the number of sides to 12,24,48 and 60. He argued that by increasing the number of sides will ultimately result in obtaining the original circle, thereby laying the foundation for the theory of limits. He ended up with the lower bound as 22/7 and the upper bound 223/71. He could not continue his research as his hometown Syracuse was invaded by Romans and was killed by one of the soldiers. His last words were ‘do not disturb my circles’, perhaps a reference to his continuing efforts to find the value of π to a greater accuracy.

Archimedes can be considered as the father of geometry. His contributions revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus. He invented the pulley and the hydraulic screw for drawing water from a well. He also discovered the law of hydrostatics. He formulated the law of levers which states that a smaller weight placed farther from a pivot can balance a much heavier weight closer to it. He famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the earth”.

Mathematicians have found many expressions for π as a sum of infinite series that converge to its value. One such famous series is the Leibniz Series found in 1674 by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, which is given below.

π = 4 ( 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – ………….)

The Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan came up with a magnificent formula in 1910. The short form of the formula is as follows.

π = 9801/(1103 √8)

For practical applications an approximation is sufficient. Even NASA uses only the approximation 3.141592653589793 for its interplanetary navigation calculations.

It is not just an interesting and curious number. It is used for calculations in navigation, encryption, space exploration, video game development and even in medicine. As π is fundamental to spherical geometry, it is at the heart of positioning systems in GPS navigations. It also contributes significantly to cybersecurity. As it is an irrational number it is an excellent foundation for generating randomness required in encryption and securing communications. In the medical field, it helps to calculate blood flow rates and pressure differentials. In diagnostic tools such as CT scans and MRI, pi is an important component in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques.

This elegant, never-ending number demonstrates how mathematics transforms into practical applications that shape our world. The possibilities of what it can do are infinite as the number itself. It has become a symbol of beauty and complexity in mathematics. “It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.” said Sophie Germain.

Mathematics fans are intrigued by this irrational number and attempt to calculate it as far as they can. In March 2022, Emma Haruka Iwao of Japan calculated it to 100 trillion decimal places in Google Cloud. It had taken 157 days. The Guinness World Record for reciting the number from memory is held by Rajveer Meena of India for 70000 decimal places over 10 hours.

Happy Pi Day!

The author is a senior examiner of the International Baccalaureate in the UK and an educational consultant at the Overseas School of Colombo.

by R N A de Silva

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Features

Sheer rise of Realpolitik making the world see the brink

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1 day ago

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2026/03/12

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A combined US-Israel attack on Iran.(BBC)

The recent humanly costly torpedoing of an Iranian naval vessel in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone by a US submarine has raised a number of issues of great importance to international political discourse and law that call for elucidation. It is best that enlightened commentary is brought to bear in such discussions because at present misleading and uninformed speculation on questions arising from the incident are being aired by particularly jingoistic politicians of Sri Lanka’s South which could prove deleterious.

As matters stand, there seems to be no credible evidence that the Indian state was aware of the impending torpedoing of the Iranian vessel but these acerbic-tongued politicians of Sri Lanka’s South would have the local public believe that the tragedy was triggered with India’s connivance. Likewise, India is accused of ‘embroiling’ Sri Lanka in the incident on account of seemingly having prior knowledge of it and not warning Sri Lanka about the impending disaster.

It is plain that a process is once again afoot to raise anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. An obligation is cast on the Sri Lankan government to ensure that incendiary speculation of the above kind is defeated and India-Sri Lanka relations are prevented from being in any way harmed. Proactive measures are needed by the Sri Lankan government and well meaning quarters to ensure that public discourse in such matters have a factual and rational basis. ‘Knowledge gaps’ could prove hazardous.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt that Sri Lanka’s sovereignty was violated by the US because the sinking of the Iranian vessel took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While there is no international decrying of the incident, and this is to be regretted, Sri Lanka’s helplessness and small player status would enable the US to ‘get away with it’.

Could anything be done by the international community to hold the US to account over the act of lawlessness in question? None is the answer at present. This is because in the current ‘Global Disorder’ major powers could commit the gravest international irregularities with impunity. As the threadbare cliché declares, ‘Might is Right’….. or so it seems.

Unfortunately, the UN could only merely verbally denounce any violations of International Law by the world’s foremost powers. It cannot use countervailing force against violators of the law, for example, on account of the divided nature of the UN Security Council, whose permanent members have shown incapability of seeing eye-to-eye on grave matters relating to International Law and order over the decades.

The foregoing considerations could force the conclusion on uncritical sections that Political Realism or Realpolitik has won out in the end. A basic premise of the school of thought known as Political Realism is that power or force wielded by states and international actors determine the shape, direction and substance of international relations. This school stands in marked contrast to political idealists who essentially proclaim that moral norms and values determine the nature of local and international politics.

While, British political scientist Thomas Hobbes, for instance, was a proponent of Political Realism, political idealism has its roots in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and latterly Friedrich Hegel of Germany, to name just few such notables.

On the face of it, therefore, there is no getting way from the conclusion that coercive force is the deciding factor in international politics. If this were not so, US President Donald Trump in collaboration with Israeli Rightist Premier Benjamin Natanyahu could not have wielded the ‘big stick’, so to speak, on Iran, killed its Supreme Head of State, terrorized the Iranian public and gone ‘scot-free’. That is, currently, the US’ impunity seems to be limitless.

Moreover, the evidence is that the Western bloc is reuniting in the face of Iran’s threats to stymie the flow of oil from West Asia to the rest of the world. The recent G7 summit witnessed a coming together of the foremost powers of the global North to ensure that the West does not suffer grave negative consequences from any future blocking of western oil supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel is having a ‘free run’ of the Middle East, so to speak, picking out perceived adversarial powers, such as Lebanon, and militarily neutralizing them; once again with impunity. On the other hand, Iran has been bringing under assault, with no questions asked, Gulf states that are seen as allying with the US and Israel. West Asia is facing a compounded crisis and International Law seems to be helplessly silent.

Wittingly or unwittingly, matters at the heart of International Law and peace are being obfuscated by some pro-Trump administration commentators meanwhile. For example, retired US Navy Captain Brent Sadler has cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for the right to self or collective self-defence of UN member states in the face of armed attacks, as justifying the US sinking of the Iranian vessel (See page 2 of The Island of March 10, 2026). But the Article makes it clear that such measures could be resorted to by UN members only ‘ if an armed attack occurs’ against them and under no other circumstances. But no such thing happened in the incident in question and the US acted under a sheer threat perception.

Clearly, the US has violated the Article through its action and has once again demonstrated its tendency to arbitrarily use military might. The general drift of Sadler’s thinking is that in the face of pressing national priorities, obligations of a state under International Law could be side-stepped. This is a sure recipe for international anarchy because in such a policy environment states could pursue their national interests, irrespective of their merits, disregarding in the process their obligations towards the international community.

Moreover, Article 51 repeatedly reiterates the authority of the UN Security Council and the obligation of those states that act in self-defence to report to the Council and be guided by it. Sadler, therefore, could be said to have cited the Article very selectively, whereas, right along member states’ commitments to the UNSC are stressed.

However, it is beyond doubt that international anarchy has strengthened its grip over the world. While the US set destabilizing precedents after the crumbling of the Cold War that paved the way for the current anarchic situation, Russia further aggravated these degenerative trends through its invasion of Ukraine. Stepping back from anarchy has thus emerged as the prime challenge for the world community.

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