Sri Lankan adventurer launches global wildlife memoir with a cause

Senaka Kotagama

First recipient Nahil Wijesuriya shows off the book presented by Senaka Kotagama

Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist Dr. Duminda Samarasinghe

By Michelle Therese Alles

A black shadow slinks across the Laikipia Plateau under a starlit Kenyan sky—rare, majestic, and almost mythic. To many, the black leopard is a ghost of folklore. To explorer, photographer, and now debut author, Senaka Kotagama, it became a life-changing encounter. 

Kotagama recently released The World of the Black Leopard, a self-published memoir that chronicles five decades of global wildlife exploration and personal insights across some of the world’s most remote and wildest terrains.

Born in Sri Lanka’s mist-enveloped tea country in the mid-1960s, Kotagama grew up fascinated by nature. While his professional title reads ‘Tea Taster’, his spirit belongs in the wild. As a child of the hills, he developed an unshakable bond with the outdoors, a bond that would lead him far beyond the plantations of home to track elusive big cats in many locations around the world. 

However, it was in 2023 that Kotagama made history. Inspired by British wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, he became the first Sri Lankan to track and photograph a melanistic leopard in the wild. Dubbed Giza, Swahili for ‘Black Beauty’, the animal is a rare genetic marvel, revered among local tribes and virtually invisible to all but the most persistent. Kotagama’s discovery of Giza in Kenya’s Laikipia region marked the culmination of years of determination, patience, and a willingness to vanish into some of the world’s remotest corners.

His resulting book, The World of the Black Leopard blends high-stakes adventure with ecological urgency. From the dense Amazon to the icy peaks of Patagonia, and the bio-diverse waters off Southeast Asia, Kotagama’s journeys reflect a modern explorer’s path. His penned prose, often composed on his phone amid harsh terrain, is paired with evocative photographs from his own archive, capturing the fleeting moments that define life in the wild.

Laikipia, less known than Kenya’s Maasai Mara, is at the heart of the book. Through his words and images, Kotagama invites readers into a realm few outsiders have seen. Yet perhaps the most moving aspect of this publication is its purpose. Kotagama has pledged all profits from the book to Rotary for Little Hearts, an initiative under Rotary District 3220. The goal is to raise $ 1 million for the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children in Colombo, where over 3,000 children are born each year with congenital heart defects. Through his book, Kotagama hopes not just to inspire wanderlust, but to fund lifesaving care for the island’s youngest and most vulnerable.

“There’s no financial motivation,” he stated at the launch. “The real reward is in giving back, through nature, and for nature.”

Speaking at the event, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist Dr. Duminda Samarasinghe highlighted the urgent need for greater investment in paediatric cardiac care. “Every year, over 3,000 children in Sri Lanka are born with congenital heart defects,” he noted. Despite high success rates when treated early, Dr. Samarasinghe emphasised that financial constraints continue to prevent many families from obtaining the care their children need. 

A deeply personal, visually stunning, and philosophically rich memoir, The World of the Black Leopard positions Kotagama not only as a gifted storyteller but also as a modern explorer with a mission. And in a world increasingly disconnected from the wild, his story is a vivid reminder of what still lies out there, if we only take the time to look.

Pix by Sameera Wijesinghe