Ride for the Rosette reaches Wilpattu as fifth stop in DFCC

DFCC Bank’s expanding leopard conservation campaign, Ride for the Rosette, reached Wilpattu as its fifth stop, bringing together participants to raise funds and awareness for the protection of the threatened Sri Lankan leopard, according to The Island.

The campaign forms part of a three-year partnership between DFCC Bank and the Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust (WWCT) to support science-based leopard and landscape conservation. The initiative uses cycling as a platform to build support and raise funds, with participants contributing towards the cause and DFCC Bank matching the funds raised. The combined contributions support strategic leopard conservation projects implemented by WWCT as the bank's specialist conservation partner.

Media additions

The Wilpattu event brought together more than 40 participants for a 21-kilometre ride from the entrance of Wilpattu National Park to Nochchiyagama. According to The Island, the initiative follows earlier rides held in Colombo, Kandy, Tissamaharama, and Haputale. The Haputale and Wilpattu events combined attracted more than 100 participants, consisting primarily of bank employees and customers.

Wilpattu was chosen as a setting because the national park and its surrounding landscape support an important leopard population, placing the campaign close to one of the country's best-known wildlife habitats. By contrast, the earlier ride in Haputale brought the campaign into Sri Lanka's Central Highlands, where forests, plantations, settlements, and wildlife increasingly share the same landscape. Together, the two rides allowed participants to consider leopard conservation across two very different environments. Participants at the Wilpattu programme also attended an awareness session conducted by DFCC Bank and WWCT on the leopard's role as Sri Lanka's apex predator and the importance of protecting the landscapes and ecosystems on which it depends.

The initiative is part of a broader strategy recognising the leopard as an umbrella species, where protecting the habitats it requires can also help safeguard wider biodiversity and the ecological systems supporting water, soil, agriculture, and communities. The wider collaboration encompasses public education, research-informed conservation, and support for selected interventions addressing habitat protection and coexistence between people and wildlife, alongside educational resources and conversations examining the relationship between leopard protection, biodiversity, and national resilience.

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What to Watch Next

• Further Ride for the Rosette events planned by DFCC Bank to extend the campaign to additional locations and give more employees and customers an opportunity to contribute.
• Upcoming international aid donor meetings regarding fund replenishments.