<p>The world is making progress towards ending the loss of mangrove forests, according to this new report by the FAO. Found on the coastlines of 123 countries worldwide, over 20 percent of mangroves are estimated to have been lost globally over the past 40 years, mainly due to both human activities and natural retraction.</p>
Fishing has been banned in 28 rivers and canals flowing through the Sunderbans of Bangla desh. This has been done to conserve the aquatic biodiversity and encourage the sustainable development of
The last frontier of the Bengal floodplains, the Sunderbans is a sprawling archipelago of several hundred islands, some large, some minuscule, stretching nearly 300 km between West Bengal and Bangladesh.
Sagar Refugee Colony, Ganga Sagar <i>gram panchayat</i>: Ever since her older son went off to work as a daily labourer in Kashmir two years ago, Sahajadi Bibi has to worry a little less about how to feed her family of eight.
The business of settling new-formed land, rehabilitation of environmental refugees and building and maintaining embankments is subject to much political manoeuvring. Anthropologist Amites Mukhopadhyay of Kalyani University, West Bengal, who's researched these machinations extensively, calls it " <i>char</i> politics'.
Environmentalists at a discussion yesterday urged the government to declare February 14 as Sundarbans Day. They said the Sundarbans with its rich bio-diversity is protecting the southwestern region of the country from natural calamities, but the forest resources are being plundered, threatening ecological disaster. The largest mangrove forest in the world must be preserved in its natural form as it is essential not only for our survival but also for the existence of the mankind, they added.
