Maduganga Sanctuary-Balapitiya Sri Lanka

Maduganga is a shallow water body in South-West Sri Lanka, which enters to the sea at Balapitiya. It is situated 88 kilometers away from Colombo in Galle district within the two Divisional Secretariats of Balapitiya and Karandeniya. It is considered as Sri Lanka’s second largest wetland. Maduganga has 15 islands of various sizes surrounded by water all round year, 15 islands including two main islands providing shelter to 215 families. It covers 915ha and Open water area is 770ha and total island area is 145ha. There are three major inflows: Boralessa Ela, Heen Ela and Magala Ela 

Considering the importance of the rich bio-diversity heritage of the Maduganga Estuary, the Department of Wildlife Conservation has drawn up plans to declare this wetland as a Sanctuary. Presently Maduganga Estuary is among the six sites selected from the Southwest Coasts of Sri Lanka for the Special Area Management (SAM) Project of the Coastal Conservation Department.  The SAM has an area of 1587 hectares, and this is used as the basis of the field study area, (CCD and Euro consult 2004). It is also listed as a RAMSAR wetland. 

Maduganga wetland consist of 10 major wetland vegetation types, according to the assessment carried out by IUCN Sri Lanka on the status of bio diversity in the Maduganga mangrove estuary. There are 302 species of plants belonging to 95 families, including 19 endemics, 8 nationally threatened species and 9 invasive alien species.  A total of 248 species of vertebrate fauna, belonging to 121 families were recorded from Maduganga. These included 20 species (8 %) of endemics, while 30 species (12 %) are nationally threatened. Among the endemic vertebrate species at Maduganga, 70% are nationally threatened. The native vertebrate fauna of Maduganga represents 30% of Sri Lanka’s native inland vertebrate species. (IUCN Sri Lanka, 2000)