Wildlife officers attached to the Udawalawe National Park have uncovered and destroyed an illegally cultivated cannabis plot inside the protected reserve, Newswire reported.
The cultivation site was located in the Ali Dutugala area under the Panahaduwa range office and covered approximately a quarter of an acre, according to the report. The raid was carried out on Thursday (14) by officers attached to the Panahaduwa Wildlife Protection Office under the direction of area wildlife officials.
No suspects were present at the location at the time of the operation. The cannabis plants were uprooted and destroyed by fire, and details of the operation were reported to the Embilipitiya Magistrate’s Court. Investigations are ongoing to identify those responsible for the cultivation.
Udawalawe is one of Sri Lanka’s most-visited national parks and a major elephant habitat. Illegal cultivation inside protected reserves is a persistent enforcement challenge, with dense vegetation and remote access making detection difficult.
The seizure follows a much larger joint Army-Police operation in April, in which 155,000 cannabis plants were seized from a three-acre site inside the surrounding Udawalawe Reserve, and earlier enforcement action against poachers inside Yala’s Zone 2.
