The Journey South (the Heart of Darkness)

Kolkata is the gateway city to one of the most unique and celebrated ecosystems on the planet - the Sundarbans. The single largest block of tidal mangrove forest in the world, the Sundarbans stretches for 10,000 sq. km along the Indian and Bangladeshi coastline of the Bay of Bengal. Formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Maghna rivers, this massive delta supports unique flora and fauna as well as providing critical ecosystem services to Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. 

The Sundarbans, literally translated as "beautiful forest" in Bangla, is a bizarre landscape of flat mangrove-covered islands, rivers and mudflats. Transformed twice daily by the endless rise and fall of the tides, all life here (human, plant, and animal) is adapted to the ever-present saltwater and impermanence of the land.  Due to the extreme salinity gradient between the ocean and landward sides of the delta, the Sundarbans is highly biodiverse. Additionally, the complex underwater topography created by mangrove roots provides an important nursery to young fish and crustaceans. According to the 2011 nationwide census the Indian side of the Sundarbans supports the nation's single largest population of endangered Bengal tigers.  These roughly 270 animals are uniquely adapted to their watery environment and capable of swimming long distances from island to island. 

The Indian Sundarbans are protected by multiple layers of legal designations, including tiger reserve, national park, and wildlife sanctuary. But well before these exclusionary conservation policies came into effect, the Sundarbans were home to millions of people. The area's human population now stands at over four million, mostly landless agricultural workers who depend heavily on fishing, shrimp aquaculture, and the collection of forest products like wood and honey. Harvesting wood and honey, as well as netting the shoreline for baby shrimp, often require people to illegally enter areas of protected forest. Once in the forest, in addition to damaging the integrity of the national park, these people are vulnerable to tiger attack. Sundarban tigers kill between 100-250 people every year, far and away more than in any other area in India. 

What brought me to this tiger-infested mangrove swamp, you may ask?  As part of my investigation into ecosystem-based adaptation in India, I was interested in looking into adaptation activities and actors in a variety of different landscapes.  For my study sites I chose the Indian UNESCO biosphere reserves - areas designated as having special biological and cultural diversity which seek to reconcile conservation with economic and social development. Biosphere reserves are supposed to be model landscapes in which to test and demonstrate innovative approaches to sustainable development. I was visiting the Sundarbans, the first of my Biosphere Reserve visits, to see if this was actually the case. 

But before my investigation could begin, I had to get there.  Easier said than done.  From Kolkata we caught a local train, which involved a mad, no-holds-barred scramble with the fifty other people trying to enter the carriage for a few square inches of bench space on which to park my bum.  Having secured a spot, I uncomfortably occupied it for the next three hours until our arrival in Canning, the largest town in the Sundarbans region (named after Lord Canning, Governor General of India from 1856 to 1858). From Canning we rode on the roof of an extremely overcrowded shared van for an hour to reach the end of contiguous land in the village of Sajnekhali. Piling onto a local ferry we motored across a river channel to Gosaba. A bicycle rickshaw and one more ferry later, we finally arrived on Sajnekhali island, within the wildlife sanctuary. Next post: the Sundarbans!

Some pictures from the varied journey south from urban Kolkata to the fringes of the mangrove wilderness.

Kolkata train station

View from the local train: Kolkata to Canning

View from the local train: Kolkata to Canning

Waiting for the ferry at Sonakhali

Ferry from Sonakhali to Gosaba 

Local man fishing for baby shrimp to sell to an aquaculture farm: a highly unsustainable and dangerous practice

School kids as seen in passing from the bicycle rickshaw

Ponds for freshwater access and aquaculture

Sundarbans agricultural landscape

Safari, India-style

We left Mussourie hideously early in the morning on a rickety old bus. The driver took advantage of the early morning lack of traffic to whiz down the hill and around the curves at a speed my stomach and inner ear did not agree with. In the early afternoon, much road-side food and many near-traffic accidents later, we arrived in Ramnagar, the nearest town to Jim Corbett National Park, one of the best known national parks and tiger preserves in India.

The days of our visit were the first two days of the park's open season, and at first it seemed that we would not be able to get entry permits due to the park’s popularity. But after hanging around the office for an entire morning and speaking with numerous officials, we finally triumphed over bureaucracy and got a 2-day, overnight permit to the Bijrani zone of the park. Our morning was enlivened by the presence of a protest at the park headquarters. Just a few days before, a tiger had killed a woman from a nearby village who was gathering wood in the outskirts of the park. About 50 villagers were staging a sit-in to demand compensation and increased protection. Tigers are a huge draw for tourists and a source of income for local people, but this was an important reminder that people are still killed by tigers every year and that human-wildlife conflict is an important issue in India.




We finally got our permits and headed into the park in a jeep with a guide and another couple we met in the park offices. During our two days in Corbett we saw all manner of beasties, including barking deer (or Muntjac, Muntiacus muntjak), spotted deer (chital, Axis axis), and sambar deer (Rusa unicolor). Also seen where wild peacock, hoopoe birds, and languor monkeys, and the big two, the Asian elephant and two tigers! We were very lucky to see the tigers - they are rather rare and many people spend days in the park without seeing any. For us, it just took a bit of patience and some luck. Our mandatory guide was not much help though - of the two tigers we spotted, I saw the first one and R. found the second!