Malwattage Celestine Violet Savitri Gunatilleke (born July 30, 1945) is professor emeritus at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka's Central Province.
She received primary education at Little Flower Convent in Bandarawela, an agricultural city in the Badulla District from 1949 to 1953.
[1] Shortly after graduation, in 1970, she began teaching as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Botany at the University of Ceylon in Peradeniya.
The study revealed that a great proportion of endemic tree species were confined to Sri Lanka's lowland rain forests and highlighted the need to conserve them.
[8] Although she pursued education outside of Sri Lanka, Gunatilleke planned on spending her career in her home country.
Her father's encouragement to "return to the island to serve [her] motherland"[1] played a role in her commitment of to not letting knowledge leave her country.
Her work contributed to declaring the Sinharaja rain forest a World Heritage Site on October 21, 1988.
[10] For one project, they looked at conditions required for growth to enable nearby villagers to grow tree species in the buffer zone around the protected area so they could continue to use forest resources.
The third main component of their research looked into reconnecting fragmented patches to increase their chance of survival.
[1] Since retiring, she has been involved with training government officers, NGOs, local and foreign student groups interested in forest biology and ecology.