COLOMBO — The mist-covered tea estates, forest patches and mountain valleys of Sri Lanka’s hill country support some of the country’s most important leopard populations outside protected areas. Yet the same landscapes have emerged as the deadliest places for the threatened big cats of Sri Lanka. A new study analyzing 17 years of leopard mortality records has found that nearly 40% of recorded leopard deaths occurred within a single district of Sri Lanka’s Central Highlands, the tea-growing Nuwara Eliya, which accounts for only 4.4% of the species’ estimated range. The study, published in Wildlife Letters, documented 164 human-caused leopard deaths between 2008 and 2024. Most of the victims were adult males, with adults accounting for 87.3% of deaths, out of which 68.4% males made up 68.4% of that adult population. With fewer than 1,000 mature leopards believed to remain in Sri Lanka, deaths of adult leopards are raising concerns for the species’ long-term survival, as deaths of breeding-age individuals, even modest increases in adult mortality, can have significant impacts, said Sanjaya Weerakkody, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. The majority of recorded deaths were of males, also problematic as the males maintain large territories overlapping with multiple females, which could lead to destabilize local populations, Weerakkody told Mongabay. A rare image of a mating leopard pair captured by a camera trap in the tea fields of Sri Lanka’s Central Highlands highlights that the human-dominated hill country tea landscape is habitat for Sri…This article was originally published on Mongabay

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka banned the purchase and use of single-use plastic water bottles in all government institutions effective May 31, under a new government circular that targets reduction of wasteful plastic consumption within the state sector. The move is the latest in a long line of attempts by the island nation to reduce plastic pollution — a crisis that clogs waterways, pollutes beaches, harms marine life, and overwhelms the country’s fragile waste management systems. But environmentalists say the real question is not whether Sri Lanka can announce another ban, but whether it can be enforced. The new directive applies to public institutions and is expected to reduce the routine use of disposable plastic water bottles during government meetings, events, offices and official functions. Authorities are encouraging reusable alternatives and better drinking water infrastructure within public institutions, says Kapila Rajapaksha, the director-general of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), the state agency mandated to address plastic pollution. Sri Lanka’s plastic problem is growing exponentially. The National Plastic Waste Inventory (NPWI) published in 2024 has estimated the island’s municipal plastic waste generation to be approximately 250,000 metric tons per year. Sri Lanka recycles only about 27,000 metric tons of plastic waste annually, roughly 11% of total plastic waste generated. An estimated 68,000 metric tons, or 27% of plastic waste, remain uncollected and are often burned, buried or illegally dumped. Approximately 101,000 metric tons or 41% of the plastics go unaccounted from the waste management system during collection, transport, sorting and disposal. According…This article was originally published on Mongabay

As offshore wind farms expand rapidly in the global renewable energy transition, scientists are studying how these large marine infrastructure projects affect ecosystems beneath the waves. Research from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands suggests that offshore wind may bring both risks and benefits for sharks and rays, known collectively as Elasmobranchii, which are highly sensitive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). A six-year project called “Elasmopower” examined how EMFs from subsea power cables in offshore wind farms affect bottom-dwelling sharks and rays. These species depend on natural electric and magnetic fields for key behaviors such as navigation, prey detection, habitat use and long-distance movement, particularly in low-visibility environments. The studies conducted as part of the Elasmopower project have been published in four papers, with three additional papers currently undergoing peer review. Sharks and rays have specialized electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini. The jelly-filled sensory canals around the head and snout can detect even extremely weak EMFs from prey and predators, water movement, and the Earth’s geomagnetic field, Erwin Winter, a scientist at Wageningen, told Mongabay. This system is central to hunting and orientation, making Elasmobranchii especially relevant for studying EMF exposure from offshore energy infrastructure, Winter added. Erwin Winter, a researcher with the Elasmopower project, presented findings on offshore wind, electromagnetic fields and bottom-dwelling sharks and rays at the Sharks International 2026 conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in May. Image by Malaka Rodrigo for Mongabay. During a presentation on a summary of the Elasmopower research at the Sharks International 2026…This article was originally published on Mongabay