Hikkaduwa National Park is one of the two marine national parks in Sri Lanka. The national park contains a fringing coral reef of high degree of biodiversity. The area was declared a wildlife sanctuary on May 18, 1979, and then on August 14, 1988, upgraded to a nature reserve with extended land area.[1] The growth of the number of visitors in the next 25 years increased the degradation of the coral reef. To reduce the effects to the ecosystem, the reef was declared a national park on September 19, 2002.