Govt initiatives help improve Sundarbans ecosystem, biodiversity

The ecosystem and biodiversity in the Surdarbans have witnessed a marked progress in recent years due to various programmes of the government taken to protect the world’s largest mangrove forest.

A 2023 survey of the Forest Department shows there were 1,40,357 chital deer, also known as spotted deer, in the Sundarbans in 2023, while its number was only around 83,000 in 2004.

The wild boar population was found around 45,110 in the forest in 2023 against 28,000 in 2004. The number of monkeys was found about 152,444 in 2023, while 51,000 in 2004.

The survey also revealed that there were 25,124 monitor lizards and 12,241 porcupines in the mangrove forest in 2023.

Forest conservators said the survey findings proved that various pragmatic steps that the imbuement government has taken to conserve the Sundarbans have played an enabling role in enhancing the number of wildlife in the forest.

In the past, the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans was considered as one of the sources of revenue earning and approval was given to fell trees from the forest on commercial basis.

At present, the government has imposed restriction on cutting trees from the Sundarbans till 2030 aiming to conserve its ecosystem and biodiversity.

The Forest Department now allows the local people to only harvest the secondary forest resources like fish, crabs, honey and golpata on season basis, forest officials said.

According to an official document obtained by BSS, three areas of the Sundarbans were declared as wildlife sanctuary with 1,397 square kilometres in 1996, which was 23.21 percent of the total forest. The protected area was increased to about 3,180 square kilometres in 2017.

In addition, the government has declared five areas of the canals in the Sundarbans, covering 40.52 kilometres, as ‘dolphin sanctuaries’ with a view to protecting the graceful creature of nature. Harvesting all kind of resources has been prohibited in the protested areas of the forest.

To check wildlife crimes, the Forest Department has been conducting the SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tools) patrolling in the Sundarbans since 2015. As a result, a significant success has been achieved in controlling various crimes in the mangrove forest.

Forest Department’s date shows that a total of 2,498 criminals were arrested and 1,169 water vessels were seized through SMART patrolling from January 2018 to June 2023.

For minimising human-animal conflicts in the Sundarbans, the government formulated a rule in 2021 to compensate the members of the people who get victimised in animal attacks. If a person is killed in tiger or crocodile attack, his or her family is being compensated Taka three lakh. In case, if a person is injured in tiger or crocodile attack, Taka one lakh is being given to him or her.

The government has already formulated the Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan (2018-2027) to conserve tigers, the flagship species of the Sundarban. The Forest Department has formed 49 village tiger response teams, involving local people, to mitigate the tiger-human conflicts along the forest.

The mangrove forest, one of the largest such forests in the world, is formed at the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal.

The Sundarban Reserve Forest of Bangladesh is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh’s division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India’s state of West Bengal.

The Sundarbans covers an area of about 10,000 square kilometres, of which forests in Bangladesh’s Khulna Division extend over 6,517 square kilometres and in West Bengal, they extend over 3,483 square kilometres across the South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts.

The Sundarbans is the home to the critically endangered Bengal tigers. For its rick ecosystem and biodiversity, the mangrove forest was declared as Ramsar site in 1992. In 1997, four protected areas in the mangrove were enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage sites. (BSS)