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Mangrove tract - a world heritage site
THE Sundarbans, probably the world's largest mangrove tract situated on the southwestern part of the country, exten ds its western limit into the Indian state ofWest Bengal.
The vast expanse of forest and swamp, of about 170 miles along the sea face of the Bay of Bengal from the estuary of the Hoogly river to that of the Meghna and running in land to a distance between 45 to 60 miles. The immense deltaic forest of 10,017 sq km includes 6.017 sq km covering Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira, lies between 21°39‘ to 21’31' 15" N and 89°12' 54" to 89-29' 04"E
The Sundarbans area was formed with the deposition of silt carried down by the Brahmaputra and the Ganges rivers and by a large number of tributaries. It has been said that, the tidal swamp of the forest extended landward to the base of the Rajmahal hills and filled up in the latter part of the ,i tertiary.
Later evidence showed that the Bengal basin tilted eastward during the 12th century because of neo-tectonic movement resulting in a higher elevation of landmass in the eastern areas of the forest from sea level.
Ecologically, Sundarbans plays an important role, globally and regionally. While almost all the shoreline of the tropics sustains a variable amount of mangrove forest, other than the Amazon in South America, the Congo of Africa, the offshore islands of Indonesia, the river basins of Australia and West Indies, one cannot find much diversity of plants and animals in the rest of the mangrove forests. But the Sundarbans stands tall among them with 31 genuine mangrove species out of world's 56 (UNESCO). As other mangrove forests of the world already are well depleted, the Sundarbans on the contrary, possess an area of more than 70 percent well clothed in dense vegetation.
The speciality of the Sundarbans is its amazing natural resources, which includes a few globally endangered species. It is interesting to
note that plants do not thrive on the harsh environment of the estuarine deltaic landmasses. High salinity both in soil and water, fluctuation of water level, anoxic water saturated soil, and strong winds make the area difficult for most plants to thrive if not aided by special adaptation to cope with adverse conditions. Thus mangrove environment shows less diversity of plants and hence birds and animals depend on plants species. In this respect the Sundarbans sustains an amazingly large variety of flora and fauna and stands unique among the mangrove forests of theworfd.
With its mangroves and their' associates including micro flora, the Sundarbans supports 330 species of plants, 40 spetjes of mammals, eight species of amphibians, 57 species'of reptiles, 280 species of birds and 350 species of finfishes. Other life forms like crabs, shrimps, ■ gastropods, bivalves, nematodes, acorn worms, poly-chaetes, arboreal and aquatic insects are found in abundance.
Among the plants, some species such as the Sundari, which only grows on the deltas of the Irrawady estuary of Myanmar are considered globally endangered along with moth goran, guria, and a few rare species of climbers.
A speciality of the Sundarbans is its semi aquatic tigers. Together with Indian part, it is believed that around 500 tigers are found here, forming the world's most populous tiger ecological niche in a single forest tract. Tigers, largest of all cats are already listed as seriously endangered species by IUCN’s red data . book. Scientists believe that the population of the Sundarbans tiger is viable for gene pool.
Other predatory mammals like the fishing and leopard cats, found in the Sundarbans have their names on the endangered species list Salt water croco-diles, ring monitor, the largest members of the lizard family after the comado dragon, and largest venomous snake in the world - the king cobra - Asia's most potent venomous land snake and the blackkrait thrived
well in this forest The white-bellied mangrove snake, batagur terrapin, green frog etc. Among the endangered avian fauna that inhabits or visits the Sundarbans are mangrove pittas, whistler, paradise flycatcher, masked fin-foot, spoonbill sandpiper and the goliath heron are other rare creatures that may be encountered in the swamp of the Sundarbans.
The name 'Sundarbans' appears to be of recent origin i.e., during the British rule. Its ancient name was Kalikabon, while the medieval name was Bada, derived from Arabic word 'badish' meaning forest. Mughal rulers described the area as Muradkhana and Jeradkhana, also as 'Bhanti' but
at present people who live along the borderline of the forest prefers it as'Bada.'
Lord Clive (?), the Brit who conquered Bengal was granted the zamindari of lower Bengal and Sundarbans by the then ruler of Bengal Mir Zafar Ali Khan. Between 1770 and 1872, the British had cleared about 1,77,152 acres of the Sundarbans forest. In 1878, British imperial Indian forest service brought the Sundarbans under its jurisdiction and divided the area into two productive zones, the reserve forest area and the protected forest area. The demarcation line was the Raimongol river, which, at present, is the boundary between India and Bangladesh. While lower quality
of vegetation of the Indian part was put aside as protected forest, the timber value — especially the sundari-rich Bangladesh part was declared as reserve forest.
In the 1969, a survey of wild animals was conducted by the World Wild Life Fund under Guy Mount Fort, a renowned British ornithologist in the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans. The team suggested three sea-facing ecologically rich areas of the forest to be declared as wildlife sanctuaries, which the Forest Department of Bangladesh immediately implemented on paper. In the year 1977 the Forest Department established three wildlife sanctuaries in three recommended areas under Bangladesh Wildlife
Preservation (Amendment) Act 1974. The areas are the Sundarbans East (compartments 4,5,6,7, areas31,227 ha), the Sundarbans South (compartments 43, 44, areas 36,971 ha) and the Sundarbans West (compartments 53,54,55, areas 71,502ha).
In the early 1980s, the Sundarbans was declared as Ramsarsite.
Finally on 6th December 1997, UNESCO declared these three sanctuaries as its 522nd worldheritagesite, although tire Indian part was included much earlier. -
Story: Khosru Chowdhury Photo: Syed Zakir Hossien Courtesy: Bengal Tours