(in which Bangalore is revealed to be an inferior mega-city to Kolkata, despite what all the tech-heads think)
Emboldened by our success in reaching the salt-encrusted tiger swamp, our first Indian biosphere reserve, we hopped on a plane from Kolkata to Bangalore in hot pursuit of our second. Bangalore, India's 3rd most populous city and the capitol of the state of Karnataka, is the gateway city to the Nilgiri biosphere reserve, a fantastic landscape of forested hillsides and tea plantations spanning three states. Known for its parks, renowned research institutions and universities, and high-tech industries, Bangalore ranks highly on most people's list of livable Indian cities.
But in this self-described Garden City I failed to find a single garden. My Bangalore experience was a wilderness of crumbling cement, congested roads, and cockroach-infested budget hotel rooms. It probably didn't help that I spent most of my three days in the city in and around the chaotic wasteland of the interstate bus terminal. Hey, the accommodation was cheap, transportation was easily available, and I only had three meetings to conclude before we could get the heck out. One evening we succeeded in escaping the grey hell in order to find the city's commercial center. But here too, gaudy signs and blaring traffic left me cold.
Bangalore, I do not love you. But maybe I didn't give you are fair shake. When next I come again, show me your fair parks and multi-billion dollar corporate headquarters, and then, perhaps, I will give you a second chance.
Here are some pictures of the few sights of Bangalore I did find appealing.
Typical south Indian food: dosa on the left and idli sambar on the right.
The unique ecosystem of the Sundarbans is highly vulnerable to climate change. Sandwiched between the freshwater flow of three major rivers from the north and the ever-shifting sea to the south, the mudflats and islands of the Sundarbans are constantly eroding, accumulating and being reshaped. One potential impact of climate change in the region is increased storm intensity. The good news is that the Sundarban mangrove forests serve as a buffer, mitigating storm surges before they reach inland areas. The bad news is the increased risk from typhoons for the four million people living in here.
The entire Sundarban ecosystem is also extremely low-lying, at or within a few meters of sea level. Current climate change projections estimate that a sea level rise of 28 cm above 2000 levels is likely to occur in the next 50-90 years. This would result in a 96% decline in Sundarban tiger habitat, with similarly dire consequences for the area's human inhabitants.
Accurate maps of the Sundarbans island system are hard to find, partially because the landscape is always shifting and maps are not accurate for very long. Another reason for the lack of detailed maps is the government's thought that good maps facilitate poachers, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and black-market cattle smugglers moving cows across the border from Hindu India to Muslim Bangladesh. This coarse map from the Sajnakhali Wildlife Sanctuary museum is one of the best I've seen.
When asked to identify the biggest environmental threat to the Sundarbans, many of the government and NGO officials in Kolkata and Canning with whom I spoke did not mention climate change. Rather, these experts cite human population density and poverty as much more immediate problems. The Sundarbans is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over half of the region's historical mangrove forest has been cut down for firewood and other subsistence needs. The remaining forest, both inside and outside of the national park, is regularly exploited for timber, fuel, pulpwood, thatching materials, honey, bees-wax, fish, crustaceans and mollusks.The West Bengal Forest Department is responsible for the preservation of the protected areas. However even this somewhat entrenched bureaucracy recognizes the impossibility of strictly enforcing all the rules. Sundarban subsistence harvesters are extremely poor and lack alternative means of making a living. Before the Sundarban ecosystem can in practice enjoy the full protection that it has on paper, the socioeconomic situation for local people must be greatly improved.
The relationship between local people and the Forest Department has gotten much better in recent years. Twenty years ago, villagers regularly killed wildlife that strayed out of the national park and also illegally entered the park to poach tigers and other animals. Nowadays poaching has been much reduced and villagers will turn straying wildlife over to the Forest Department. In exchange, the Forest Department has done an increasingly good job of involving local people in environmental decision-making through joint forestry management (JFM) programs. The Forest Department has also taken steps to improve socioeconomic conditions in the villages and increase resiliency to climate change by digging wells, planting mangroves along the mud embankments separating agricultural fields from the sea, and promoting economic opportunities.
From the Sajnakhali Wildlife Sanctuary we took a day-long boat cruise through the watery roadways of the Sundarbans. The 3-meter rise and fall of the tide was dramatic as the mudflats at the edge of the forest disappeared and then reappeared as the day wore on. We didn't see the famed Sundarban tiger, but encountered birds galore as well as many chital deer, the tiger's main source of food. Right around camp we ran into the resident mongoose begging for food at the kitchen door, as well as a fat 5-ft water monitor lizard. Small fishing boats plied the water, some sticking to the legal side of the channel and some stealthy drifting through the backwaters, deep into the protected forest. These men risk more than arrest and fines by working in these areas. Sundarban tigers are notoriously predatory towards humans. Small Sundarban fishing boats are typically operated by two people, and stories abound of one man disappearing off the back of the boat with barely a splash, his friend in the prow not noticing his absence until the lull in the conversation becomes awkward.
Sundarban boat safari: looking for wildlife
Local fisherman: legal or illegal?
Who invited the mongoose to dinner?
Chital deer
Red fiddlers
Water monitor
The tiger fence lining the landward side of the protected area. Looks flimsy but is apparently a decent deterrent.
Prime tiger ambush spot. Stripy bodies blend really well with these variegated ferns
Tiger fence close-up. The net is soft, but the tigers don't like the floppy feel of it and generally avoid it.
Sunset view from the watchtower of the Sajnakhali Wildlife Sanctuary
Casts of tiger prints made during the most recent tiger census.
For those of you with a 2009 India Lonely Planet - check out info box on pg. 536. Yeah. this is THAT guy.
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
After the farmer workshop, from Kharagpur to Kolkata we went. Kolkata: steamy mega-city on the banks of the Hooghly river, 60 miles from the Bay of Bengal. Capitol of India during the British Raj. Home of the Indian independence movement and one-time center of politics, culture, science and education in India. Contradiction embodied, with great marble British-build edifices sharing space with goat butchers and modern telecom buildings. Urban, diverse, complex. Plagued with poverty, population, and pollution. Fascinating. A little intimidating. Extremely compelling.
One afternoon we met up with the chairman of a local NGO doing environmental conservation work in the Sundarbans. Thirty seconds after saying "namaste", we were invited to the Kolkata Press Club to attend a press conference for a group of Indian climbers about to make an attempt on Mount Everest. After the event we drank beer with some of Kolkata's intellectual elite in the Press Club pub. Unique adventure, only in Kolkata.
Kolkata is one of the few cities in India that still has hand-pulled rickshaws
The Victoria Memorial Hall, remnants of the empire
Kolkata street-scape
Taxi-wala taking a break
Bengali food, as served at Kewpies resturant
Married women wear this powder in their hair parting
Chai-wala serving tea in Bengali clay cups
Street-side restaurant serving up some mean parottas
One of the two projects on which I'm working with TERI deals with how climate change affects water resource availability in north-central India. The project has multiple components being handled by several partner institutions in India and Europe and includes climate and water modeling, socioeconomic scenario development, field visits and stakeholder consultations. In brief, the idea is to 1) downscale global climate model projections to a more useful regional level, 2) use these regional predictions to model the likely impacts on water resource availability (both in terms of glacial melt and monsoon precipitation patterns, 3) think about how things like population growth, income change, and urbanization over the next 50 years will interact with changing water resource availability, and 4) to go talk to people in a couple of case study sites to better understand the local situation and what climate change may look like in that particular place. Finally, 5) wrap it all up with a bunch of reports/workshops/information-sharing.
All the case study sites for this project are in the Ganges river basin. The Ganges river has a significance in India that is difficult for westerners to understand. It is a holy river in Hinduism, worshiped as the goddess Ganga. Over 400 million people live in the river's catchment area, making it the most heavily populated watershed in the world. Stretching from the Himalaya in northern India through the Gangetic plain to the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is a critical artery through the subcontinent with massive cultural, biological, and agricultural importance.
From http://dilipkumar.in/india/rivers/ganga_purity.php
The four case study sites were selected to represent a variety of agricultural landscapes within the basin. The district of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand state is in the upper basin. From the middle basin are the sites of Delhi and Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh state. And in the lower basin is the town of Kharagpur, near Kolkata in West Bengal state.
In March I attended a community consultation in a village near the Kharagpur case study site. Rousting ourselves early from our guest house at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, we drove for 3 hours to a village in Midnapore West district. Our first meeting with about 10 district-level officials and agricultural scientists was held in the local Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), an agricultural extension office run by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The researchers from IIT Kharagpur and TERI explained how we were there to learn from the local experts and to connect on-the-ground fact-finding and human stories with the output of the impersonal computer models. For the next hour, the researchers lead the workshop participants through a discussion of what environmental problems were impacting agriculture in the area and what some possible solutions might be.
Overall, the participants were fairly pessimistic. The discussion focused on the increasing cost of cultivation due to both labor shortages and small land holdings. Poor farm laborers are migrating to the city in search of better jobs, leaving insufficient manpower to cultivate even the small plots of land held by most families. Efficiencies of scale through mechanization are impossible due to the high cost of equipment and the small farm size. The area is highly water-stressed - the water table has been over-exploited and the local characteristics of the soil make recharge a very slow process. Rainwater harvesting has been going on in the area since 2005, but the structures are very expensive to build. Increasing temperature and decreasing humidity have negativity affected the cultivation of fodder grasses for livestock, impacting the health of cattle.
The participants were also very pessimistic about the ability of the government to help them. They also questioned the value of our visit. Over the years, many NGOs and researchers have come to ask about their problems. But then off they go to publish their papers, never to return with assistance or information. I felt very self-conscious during this discussion - a large white lady expressing intellectualcuriosity but with very little understanding of the problems these people face every day. Although none of these problems can be firmly attributed to climate change, these issues are vulnerabilities that decrease the resiliency of the area to the eventual inevitable climate change impacts.
The Krishi Vigyan Kendra office
IIT Kharagpur researchers consulting with the district-level officials
The district level meeting concluded with lunch - dal, rice, and vegetable stew delivered from the kitchen in massive buckets. We all sat at long tables, shoveling up the sticky mixture with our fingers and depositing it in our mouths with the minimum of mess. Eating rice and gravy with your fingers is very much an acquired skill, and more of my rice may have ended up on my face and the table than in my mouth. I asked one of the Indian researchers why people ate with their fingers when spoons, which are not exactly advanced technology, are not hard to come by. "When you eat with your hands, you enjoy your food more" was the answer. "The feel of the rice in your fingers enhances the experience, and allows you to eat with an additional sense, the sense of touch".
After lunch, it was time to consult with the farmers themselves. The KVK officials had recruited about 20 farmers to come and share their experiences with us. Their comments were much the same as the district level officials. They told of increased problems with elephants raiding their crops and of high-energy rain events that it was impossible to store and that just ran off straight into the ocean. Rice seeds had failed to germinate in recent years due to high temperatures. Overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides had killed all the earthworms, causing a decline in vermiculture.
The farmers were much more enthusiastic about the session than the district level officials had been. They seemed ecstatic to have such a strange group of people interested in hearing about their problems. We tried to communicate clearly that we didn't have anything to give them, that we were just here to learn. They accepted this, and were still excited to share their story.
Last activity of the day: to visit the village. One farmer guided our research group through a sal forest plantation to his family's fields. And there it was, iron-age agriculture. Buffalo-driven plows and hand-picked potatoes. And in the village, mud huts with equal proportions of wide-eyed children and goats peering out of them. More than half of India's 1.2 billion people live in rural villages such as this. This is the real India, and seeing it first hand, far removed from the tourist sites most visitors to India experience, was uniquely special.
Disclaimer: Before I inadvertently give the impression that my Hindi is amazing, I should reveal that due to the mixed language abilities of our group, simultaneous translation of most comments occured in Hindi, Bangla, English and Dutch. Fortunately for me, I can speak at least one of these languages fluently.
