Sunderbans, the largest mangrove forest and river delta of the world, located partially in India and partially in Bangladesh, lists as an Unesco World Heritage Site and a natural biosphere reserve.
Besides, being the exotic natural home one of the most endangered animals, Royal Bengal Tiger, it is also an abode to numerous indigenous aboriginals whose livelihood is entirely based on the biological diversity of this reserve.
Geographically, it may have the most striking look but a close look to its natural conditions suggests it to be the greatest prey of global warming and rising of sea water level followed by soil erosion, especially river bank erosion.
Much alike the natural degraded state of this place, so is the living conditions of the numerous people residing in the islands in here, who completely depends on the forest for their livelihood. From collecting honey to fishing, their entire source of income is entirely dependent on the forest, which in turn also calls for grave dangers to their lives.
Just like any other forest tribals, the people living here finds shelter under thatched roofs and markets in a few islands, especially where there are places of tourist attraction.
Concrete roads are a rare thing to see, and beside luxurious hotels for tourists, one would find localities of thatched huts where clean water is nothing less than a blessing, where a life endangering fear is a common thing as tigers can attack any villager and can even come across rivers from one deserted island to an inhabited one.
Coming to the difficulties there, a visit to these villages would help one to understand the crisis in which they live in. The customs there are such that if the husband goes for fishing or for collecting honey in the deserted and forested islands in wooden boats, then the wives back home drape themselves in white sarees, which in Hindu tradition indicates a widow.
They take it for granted that their husbands won’t return home and take the ill fate into consideration. There are even groups of people, mainly village woman, who earn a livelihood by performing tribal dance in these luxurious hotels.
Talking to them one can get hints of the dangers they face even when they are within their homes. Attack by tigers and hyenas, as according to them, are quite common in remote villages which have no protection whatsoever. During a travel through the delta in a boat, one may very frequently come across red cloth pieces tied to bamboos at various sites which signifies that someone may have died there due to some attack or calamity and when one hears the story behind each cloth, it is quite hard to control tears. Moreover, stringent tiger protection laws have in a way put their lives in uncertainty.
Because, they can’t afford those rifles containing sleeping pins, so all they try is to beat the beasts to save their own lives, which at times leads them to land up behind bars. If one goes for a tour there, the guides would rarely show the darker side of these villages, the problems that these people face are receiving education or to earn their bread and butter.
Government jobs are there for rescue, but it’s hard to give every family, a job. Though efforts of ameliorating the conditions are on the go, but still the natural condition of the place is such that comfort to their lives is something too hard to achieve. With the river banks and soil eroding all times, even their habitat is in grave danger. Large chunks of land continue to disappear with the rising sea levels weekly, thereby endangering the delta and the home of the tribals.
Many NGOs along with the government are undertaking initiatives to make the Sunderbans a better place to live in. But then, apart from making donations we have to do our part too by not polluting the environment and adding to the cause of global warming, thereby making it sure that the Sunderban is not extinct one day.
(Coordinator, Class XII, St Thomas’ Boys’ School)