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Ride for the Rosette Reaches Wilpattu as Fifth Stop in DFCC Bank’s 2026 Leopard Conservation Campaign

DFCC Bank’s Ride for Life: Ride for the Rosette reached Wilpattu as the fifth stop in its expanding 2026 leopard conservation campaign, following rides in Colombo, Kandy, Tissamaharama and Haputale.

The Haputale and Wilpattu rides brought together more than 100 participants, primarily DFCC Bank employees and customers, continuing a campaign that uses cycling to build support and raise funds for the conservation of the threatened Sri Lankan leopard.

Through each ride, participants contribute towards the cause, with DFCC Bank matching the funds raised. The combined contribution will support strategic leopard conservation projects implemented by the Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust (WWCT), DFCC Bank’s specialist conservation partner.

The Wilpattu event brought together more than 40 participants for a 21-kilometre ride from the entrance of Wilpattu National Park to Nochchiyagama. The programme included 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.

Wilpattu provided a particularly relevant setting for the fifth ride. 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.

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.

Ride for the Rosette forms part of DFCC Bank’s three-year partnership with WWCT to support science-based leopard and landscape conservation. The partnership recognises the leopard as an umbrella species: protecting the habitats it requires can also help safeguard wider biodiversity and the ecological systems supporting water, soil, agriculture and communities.

The wider collaboration brings together public education, research-informed conservation and support for selected interventions addressing habitat protection and coexistence between people and wildlife. It has also included educational resources, public awareness initiatives and conversations examining the relationship between leopard protection, biodiversity and national resilience.

Within this larger effort, Ride for the Rosette provides a participation and fundraising platform through which DFCC Bank employees and customers can support specialist conservation work led by WWCT.

Further Ride for the Rosette events are planned, extending the campaign to more locations and giving additional employees and customers an opportunity to contribute. As the programme grows, its purpose remains clear: to turn participation into funding and sustained support for work that can help safeguard the Sri Lankan leopard.