The
Sundarbans, which literally means beautiful forests, are the world’s
largest coastal mangrove forests, stretching for almost 6,000 square
miles across India and Bangladesh. It is possible that the name may
have been derived from the Sundari trees (the mangrove species
Heritiera fomes) that are found in Sundarbans in large numbers.
Alternatively, it has been proposed that the name is a corruption of
Samudraban or Sea forest. Area of Sundarbans that fall under
jurisdiction of India, are spread over 9,600
Sq.Km. Area. Mangroves can be considered as the coastal
equivalent of tropical forests on land. It is a natural barrier,
against tsunamis and frequent cyclones, which blow in from the Bay of
Bengal. With roots that tolerate salt water, the forest’s mangrove
trees, grow 70 feet or more above islands of layered sand and gray
clay, deposited by rivers, that flow more than a thousand miles from
the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Any ecologist would tell you that
mangroves are the basis on which entire ecosystem of coastal regions
is built.
As
a coastal mangrove forest, the vegetation in the Sundarbans gets
inundated twice a day by high tides. The mangrove ecosystem of
Sundarbans is primarily made up of four kinds of salt-water trees:
Sundari, Kewra, Goran, Poshur and Gol. These trees reproduce from the
windfall seeds that fall on the ground. If vegetation gets reduced
due to some reason or other, there is strong chain reaction as
Sunderbans are a very fragile and dynamic landscape. With less
vegetation there are less windfall seeds, which would badly affect
the regeneration of the Sundarbans in the long run.These windfall
seeds are the staple food of Pungash fish that also inhabit the Sela
river waters. This fish again is one of the main foods of crocodiles
– a famous reptile from these forests. If Pungash does not get
anything to eat, they will die, eventually putting the lives of
crocodiles at risk as well. The vegetation in Sundarbans is the main
food of various kinds of deer, that live in the dense forest
surrounding the river. If there is less vegetation, that will put
the deer and different types of primates in trouble, who depend on
these trees for living. The deer, in turn, is one of the main foods
of the Bengal tigers. So, in the long run, the population of deer and
tigers – the two best known animals from the Sundarbans –
depends upon the vegetation. So critical is the vegetation, for the
entire food chain in Sundarbans.
Indian
Space Research Organisation. (ISRO) has been carrying out analysis
of the Indian Sunderbans from images obtained through satellite
mapping on regular basis for over more than a decade. They have
recently come up with a report that is a bad news for Sundarbans
environment as well as its flora and fauna.
The
report says that from the study carried out by comparing the
satellite data from February of 2003 and 2014, during last 10 years,
Indian Sundarbans have lost as much as 1,607 hectares of vegetation
because of denudation and substantial area of landmass because of
erosion. Effectively this means that Sundarbans have lost 3.71 per
cent of its mangrove and other forest cover, while losing 9,990
hectares of its landmass to erosion in one decade. The study has also
found out that about 95.14 per cent of the green cover has not
undergone change, while fresh vegetation has come up in only 1.1 per
cent of the entire area. This has happened because during last 10
years, 216 hectares of landmass had been also added to Sundarbans, of
which only 121 hectares has green vegetation.
The
study done after the satellite mapping, does not go into the details
of the reasons for loss of green cover, but says that the depletion
may be due to natural and anthropogenic (human intervention)
processes.
A
recent World Bank report points out that the carrying capacity of the
landmass in Sundarbans has exceeded with the population density of
over 1,000 a Sq.Km., making the 9,600-sq.km Indian Sunderbans, highly
susceptible to coastal erosion and coastal land dynamics. Sundarbans
mangroves remain the most crucial factor, which forms the basis on
which entire ecosystem of this coastal region depends.
Environmental
activists however feel that study based on satellite imaging is a
good starting point but ground investigations too are
required to ascertain the loss of forest and landmass cover. There is
a feeling that the loss is far more
than what has emerged in the satellite imaging. If population keeps
rising with dwindling land and resources, Sundarbans may soon turn
into Asundarbans or Ugly forests.
19th
March 2015
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