A nostalgic and tragic tale of Sundarbans, a world heritage site

It's high time to save the tiger, save the forest, 

in order to preserve it for us and for our children. 

Can't be reckless, can't make excuse, 

if we are unable to endeavour our best. 

I am lucky enough for being mesmerized by the beauties of Sundarbans, a number of times during my younger days (1982 – 1988). I saw the Sundarbans as pristine as we could wonder the forest as a land from the fairy tale. Sundarbans is the world's largest mangrove forest, a world heritage site, located on the bank of the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India. In Bengali, 'sundar' means captivating, and 'ban' means forest. The locals admiringly named the forest as Sundarbans, because of its enormous natural beauties and resources that hypnotize its visitors, not only because of its sage-like gravity in the middle of dense forest, but also because of its immense resources for its inhabitants. Also, the forest protects its inhabitants from natural calamity, which is quite a regular event in this part of the world. Unfortunately, the Sundarbans have been losing its pristine beauty and resources at an exponential pace. 

I first visited the Sundarbans during 1982-83. Until 1988, every time I visited, I saw around 40–80 spotted deer in a group were playing on the forest, eating leaves and fruits from the grounds and trees, running, chasing and falling down on each other, and making fun! On trees, I saw hundreds of macaque monkeys were chirping, playing and doing whatever they wanted to do! There were crocodiles often used to be spotted, resting on the rivers' bank. During this period, we often used to see dolphins, otters, water monitors, other lizards, wild boars, numerous birds, among others. One needs some favour of luck to see the royal Bengal tiger, widely known as the swamp tiger in the wild. We did endeavour to explore the swamp tiger in Sundarbans on several occasions. But, our luck did not favour us; but I saw very fresh (3–4 hours old) footsteps of tiger on the tidal estuary bank of the Shibsha River and the Bay of Bengal. It's in nostalgia that during one such attempt to explore the Bengal tiger, we were once driven away by a group of wild boars in Sundarbans!

Since 1994, I was awfully depressed when I used to visit the forest, as I had a feeling that the forest lost its beauties and resources more than 35%. Such beauties and resources include the mangrove and other trees, bushes, deep dark jungles, open fields, and the number of animals and birds. Since 1994, I rarely saw any wild deer, boar, crocodile or reptile in Sundarbans with their full liberty, other than the 4–5 deer, 1–2 crocodiles in the so called manmade reserves next to the forest, where we kept them by compromising with their wild liberties, as an exhibition for tourists! The Gulf Times reported that the 'census concluded in 2015 recorded only 106 tigers in the Bangladeshi Sundarbans, down from 440 in 2004'. However, Jayanta Basu in 2023 reported in the Down to Earth that the most recent tiger census shows that the Sundarbans' tiger number is increased slightly, where Mr Basu argues 'Sundarbans has been slipping in rank despite an increased tiger count'. This report also adds that there is no scope of complacence, as there are huge challenges to address for sustainable management of Sundarbans. For example, the 'lack of adequate manpower and the vulnerability of the location to climate change and submergence from sea level rise have been identified as the major challenges' to protect the world's largest mangrove forest.

During my initial visits in 1982–1988, when we used to see the forest as pristine as I described above, I did not understand properly, what I was actually enjoying in the forest. Later, during 1994 and onward, when we missed the Sundarbans in a way that we used to see it, only then, I realized what we used to see in the forest during those earlier days. Viewing the fun of animals in the wild with their full liberty is nothing, but like enjoying your time on heaven on earth.

Afterward, I visited the forest quite few times during 1997–2007. In my last visit, I felt that the forest lost more than 60% of its beauties since 1982. A November 2022 Zero Carbon Analytics demonstrates that the observations that are discussed here from the contexts of my younger days were so true, as the Sundarbans have been shrinking over the recent decades and centuries. For example, 'in 2015-16, the total area of the Sundarbans had shrunk by 210 km2 since 1967, and by 451 km2 since 1904'!  I scare, one day, perhaps, I might have to show my daughter or my daughter will need to show her kid the Sundarbans, our very own Sundarbans in the museum, unless we do our part to protect our forest!

Dr Riad Shams is an Assistant Professor and Head of the programme at the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.