The Sundarbans, on the rise and in a storm, acts as the symbol of South Asians and their future weathers.
When land and water fight forever, when the tigers stalk through the mangrove trees as the millions of people perch on ill-fated islands, Sundarbans is disappearing in front of us. Homes and livelihoods are drowning in rising seas, with violent cyclones and saltwater intrusion causing families to relocate time and again. There I was, lying at the precarious outermost platform of the largest mangrove forest on the planet, able not only to see an ecological crisis but also the very human experience of loss, hope and survival in the face of climate change.
Arriving at the Edge
Experiencing this feeling, first of all, when I stepped upon the crumbling embankment of a village at the fringes of the Sundarbans, the river seemed as though it were breathing in a panting giant. The tide rolled on the mud walls on which children had been playing but a few hours ago. One of the women named Ayesha Begum recounted to me how the river had, on one particular night, gulped her house. There was neither horror nor pathos in her voice—just a resigned steadiness. I listened to her, and she made me understand that here in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest on the planet, climate change is not a theory or a headline. It consists of the water washing through the embankment, the salt in what used to be sweet wells, or the burden of rebuilding a home three or four times. I now knew that climate change was changing this disturbed borderland between land and sea. What I found out was more than an ecological story. It was a narrative of survival, identity and dignity on the edge of a planetary threat.
A Fortress of Roots and Water
The Sundarbans cover almost 4,000 square miles of interweaved mangroves, tidal rivers, and shifting islands on the border of India and Bangladesh. The area appears like a net of lines of land interwoven with water on maps. As we moved along its crass paths, fishermen were repairing boats, children fetching wood, and women carrying jars of salty water over to ponds some distance away. It is the way to live at the mercy of the tide. The Sundarbans have been termed by scientists as the natural fortress on earth. Its mangroves also take captive the wrath of the cyclone, protect the cities in the interiors, and provide fish nurseries. But when I had seen whole banks in the river swallowed with a crack, I saw how this fortress was splitting apart. There are 7.5 million and more people in this area, and each one of them is simultaneously a depositor and a sufferer of this precarious ecosystem. And with each passing season, the distinction between protection and destruction becomes a bit less clear.
The Point where the Future is Already There.
But what caught my special attention was the fact that the Sundarbans already has a glimpse of the future. Sea level in this region is increasing at almost a rate of 2 times that of the end result of the world. Islands that I read about in research articles—Lohachara and Ghoramara—have already vanished or are in vanity, scattering their inhabitants away. On a collaboration island, which is eroding, I encountered families that called themselves climate refugees. They were not talking of the word as a slogan but as their truth. Each time the water overtakes more land, they relocate to the interior. Every move is temporary. Rahimullah, one of them after the age, informed me that when I was quite young, the river could not be heard. Now it eats my land every year.” He indicated the water, and creationally I had a twinge of being on a timeline—on a timeline in which his past and present and my own future seemed to meet and touch.
Women Who Carry the Crisis
Considering the Sundarbans has a face of resilience, it can frequently be that of a woman. I sat down with a mother of three called Rehana, who demonstrated to me her rice field. The ground was blindingly salty and could not have grown crops. We have tried sunflowers and lentils, but nothing grows proficiently. We eat less now.” She is alone since her husband has left to work at Kolkata, doing the housework and more or less all of the work on the farm. The process of carrying water has already become an ordeal. Wells turn brackish. Ponds vanish. I could see women in the middle of the day walking long distances in the midday sun bearing heavy pails of water on their hips. I heard weariness but resolution, I have said, in their stories. A women's cooperative demonstrated to me how one of their cooperatives was testing the idea of a floating vegetable garden, which had been borrowed from other areas of Bangladesh where there are frequent floods. There was indeed pride in their voices: we will not wait to be rescued; we will create our own salvation.
An Experience with Tigers and Crocodiles.
The mythical Bengal tiger can also be found in the Sundarbans. These people brought me stories of men who had gone into the woods to find honey or crabs and never came back. Varied posters with the faces of people who were missing up to now formed a wall of a silent testament to this dangerous coexistence. Another predator that was talked about to me by crab collectors was crocodiles. A young man drew up his sleeve to present me with some claw marks of a would-be death wound. His shrug was like a work hazard that you coped with. "What has become of it then?" asked he. “The city does not want us. The land no longer feeds us. The river gives crabs, so we go.” Those experiences, I realized, tell more. With the disappearance of land and the reduction of resources, the physical barriers between people and wildlife fall down. The world is becoming smaller, and survival pits one against the other.
Science is Amassing the Struggle.
Later on, when I sat with the researchers in Kolkata and made a review of the maps and numbers, I saw the numbers that corresponded to the stories. Salinity levels are increasing downstream due to reduced freshwater flow from dams. It has been predicted that by 2100, parts of the Sundarbans will be submerged in the sea. These were not billions of numbers. They were the running lines that were questioning the lives of all the families I had interviewed. And yet, it was almost a voluntary blindness on the part of policies. Mangroves were replenished by shrimp farms. The plant of coal soared in Bangladesh in the coastal regions. Rivers were being drained by upstream projects. I thought, how could governments risk a lot of money with an ecosystem that literally protects millions of people?
Displacement and Identity
It is not only that one was losing land, but losing identity was even more painful. One of them informed me that her village is gone. My children question me, "Where is our home?" I have no answer.” To her, migration was not merely a process of moving but a closing off of a part of her. I also traveled to slums in Kolkata where unwanted families take their residence. Their doors are closed, they have employment insecurity, and they are constantly reminded that they no longer belong to the place they call home. As a result of the lack of commitment to climate refugees, they occupy a legal and social gigawarp. I thought that climate change does not simply change maps. It redraws the human spirit.
Small Acts of Defiance
Nevertheless, in the depth of pessimism, I still saw some wonderful endurance. Women's groups contributing the money to buy rainwater tanks. Young campaigners protesting against the ignoring of climate refugees. Salt-tolerant aquaculture fisher cooperatives are on trial. These minor failures to conform are not mere means of survival. They are expressions of honor. Their message to the world is: we aren’t passive climate change victims. We are making the counterattack with the available means. Observing them, I came to understand that resilience here is not a version. It exists day by day, in sordid fields, in huts that women rebuild, and in the salt-stung hands of women who plant crops and hope to plant them again, knowing they may not succeed.
Lessons for the World
Using Sundarbans, I have come away with three lessons.
At first, resilience is never global. No one is a better stranger to their plight than the communities. Secondly, climate justice is not a fancy argument but the determinant of life. The poor, women, and marginalized communities are the ones to bear the brunt and the first to suffer, as those are the people who contributed least to climate change. Thirdly, conservation does not simply mean tiger or mangrove protection. It is of defense of human life as such.
The Sundarbans are not a far-off tragedy. They are a mirror. What is going on here is a precursor of what may go on elsewhere. The border between earth and sea, between permanence and disintegration, is much slimmer than we think it is.
A Vanishing Horizon
During the time when my boat was drifting out of the delta, this was my view of the mangrove canopy as it faded away on the horizon. In some parts of those woods’ tigers roamed, females worked salt-stressed lands, and children lugged jars of salt water. I also remembered Rahimullah, who was afraid that his grandchildren would get acquainted with the Sundarbans by the stories. And I questioned whether this world, the broad of it, would grant that foreboding fulfillment. Since the disappearance of the Sundarbans would not only be an ecological loss. It will constitute an indictment of our failure as a group to protect the frontline of climate resiliency.
The water is already rising. Will we meet it? is the question.
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