Sundarbans

February 24, 2023

Sundarbans (‘the beautiful forest’ in English) is a wild fragile mangrove ecosystem in the southern Bengal – fundamental to existence of this part of the world. The delta homes to the biggest mangrove forest on earth and is the only tiger-mangrove. The region is one of the most vulnerable from climate change and increasing disasters. Sunderbans region includes 4263 km2 of Reserve Forest including 1678 km2 in South 24 Parganas Reserve Forest & 2585 km2 in Sunderban Tiger Reserve. Looking back to the history of the protected area, Government of India constituted Sunderban Tiger Reserve [STR] in 1973 under “Project Tiger” scheme. It covers an area of 2585 km2 comprising 1330 km2 core forest and 1255 km2 buffer zone forest. Considering the importance of Sundarban’s Bio-geographic Region, the National Park Area of the Sundarban Tiger Reserve have been included in the list of World Natural Heritage Sites in 1985. The Govt. of India declared the Sunderbans region including the protected area of Sunderban Tiger Reserve as BIOSPHERE RESERVE in 1989. And it received the recognition of UNESCO, under its Man & Biosphere (MAB) Programme in Nov. 2001. Sunderban Reserve Forest has also been nominated for recognition as a Ramsar Site (A Wetland of International Importance). The Indian Sunderban is known as Hoogly-Matla estuary (Hooghly is the Lower part of River Ganges). Besides these two main rivers, there are innumerable big & small rivers which are criss-crossing The Sunderbans namely Bidya, Saptamukhani, Raimangal, Muriganga, Thakuran, Gomor etc. Sunderban is the product of tidal estuary. Here, in the hundreds of creeks & channels the sea water gets diluted with the inflow of fresh water from the rivers, thereby causing tidal fluctuations every day. Sometimes the river swell & again it’s subsides. There are two tides & two ebbs every day.