Nature’s bounty at the Sundarbans
PART 1
Spread over nearly 6,000 square kilometres of thick
and impenetrable vegetation, along the south-western coast of Bangladesh in the
Bay of Bengal, Sundarbans is considered the largest single mangrove forest in
the world.
Even during the early 1900s, the British, who ruled the Indian subcontinent
at that time, considered it a place most inhospitable for the human beings when
an author wrote: ‘It was a water-logged jungle, in which tigers and other wild
beasts abounded. Attempts at reclamation had not been very successful.
However, this very inhospitable feature of Sundarbans
has kept it alive and well through the centuries even though Mughals first
started leasing out lands to the British back in 1757. The area was mapped by
the surveyor general as early as 1764 following soon after proprietary rights
were obtained from the Mughal Emperor, Alamgir II, by the East India Company in
1757.
We planned to visit Sundarbans during the fourth week
of July this year with a view to assessing the conditions of the wildlife and
the people living around the periphery of it following cyclone Aila that hit
the area on May 25.
Sixteen scientists, birdwatchers, nature
photographers, litterateurs, journalists, artists and three students hired a
26-bed motor launch MV Vela, operated by the Bengal Tours of Bangladesh on the
July 23, entered the forest the same night and returned to the shore by the
evening of July 28.
In addition to the main launch there were two additional boats, one a 10-seater
speed boat and another 20-seater locally innovated power-pump driven wooden
boat that can only move forward. Its backward movement is done manually by the
boatmen.
A melodious dawn chorus of hundreds of birds broke
the silence of the night when I saw our launch was anchored a few hundred yards
away from Sutarkhali Forest Station office under Khulna or Nalian Forest Range
in the Sundarbans West Forest Division, that has another range called
Burigoalini.
Bangladesh Sundarbans has two forest divisions, first
the west and the second being the Sundarbans East that also has two forest
ranges, namely the Chandpai and Sharankhola.
We were in the river Sutarkhali- one of the several
hundred rivers, rivulets and tributaries that cut across the Sundarbans like a
network of water bodies of various widths and lengths.
During five days we had just covered a part of the
Khulna range.
As I peeped through the window of my sleeping cubicle
a huge white-bellied Sea-Eagle flew past our boat without taking any notice of
the launch. Herons of many colours and sizes started stealthily following
aquatic animals, especially fishes from the muddy shore of the river from where
the water had receded to the lowest level at ebb tide.
Three villagers turned fisher-folk started fishing
along the bank of the river with their casting net. The elderly two were
virtually running along the bank and through knee deep water following shoals
of fishes, especially mullets that were using the surface water for gathering
food.
They threw their cast-net with an overpowering zeal.
In each cast they got just a few pieces of fishes as the rivers all through the
Sundarbans have been over fished over the past half a century or so.
After almost two hours of fishing they could catch
little over two kilograms of fishes that was worth Taka 500 in the local
market. They told me those fishes were not for sale but for their own
consumption.
After an early morning tea with biscuits I moved over
the master’s bridge to get a full view of the surroundings. As the sun tried to
brighten up the overcast sky, a passing shower dampened the launch and sun
disappeared and remained hidden over two hours or so behind a blanket of
clouds.
I saw more movements of people than wildlife because
of the rainy weather. By that time we got a call to join breakfast around 8am.
After that we were herded on to the power-pump driven
boat and were given a ration of sufficient bottled drinking water, banana and
biscuits. We went to the forest office area where there was a little hamlet of
less than 100 houses containing fisher-folks, woodcutters, honey collectors and
crabbers all of whom are locally called Bawali.
The area was teeming with birds, insects, crabs and
aquatic animals. From nowhere there appeared two Lesser Flameback Woodpeckers
chasing each other. Their fight continued right in front of us, some 10 metres
away in the woods.
At one stage the pair rolled into water below and
continued the fight for next few moments when one managed to dislodge itself
and fled from the arena.
Due to the ebbing tide we could easily see a few
species of snails crawling over the muddy forest floor where fiddler crabs busy
displaying their large chela to the adversaries, chased and counter-chased one
another for the possession of females nearby.
Mudskippers were having a field day because local
fishers had gone fishing to the deeper parts of the Sundarbans, for the day. On
closer inspection I found a medium-sized honeycomb with an estimated 5000 Apis
dorsata honeybees enveloping the queen bee and the comb.
Nearby, there was a fresh water pond that retains
rain water, used by all for both drinking purpose as well as other domestic
chores.
Boats heading for the day-long or week-long trip to
the Sundarbans fill up many earthen 200 to 500 gallon capacity earthen casks,
barrels or pots, locally called Motka or Kola.
The pond supported a huge congregation of a small
species of snail and several species of fish. One particular small one was a
surface dweller and had a white spot on the back of the head obliterating the
eyes that are located on the side of the face.
On the way back to the boat I found a pair of
white-collared Kingfisher performing a duet and dancing suggesting they might
have a nest on the same tree.
By the time we were back to the launch it was time
for lunch. After a good break we headed back to the boat for a long trip
through small rivers and canals in a nearby forest called Laodobe.
We passed a few forest offices, hamlets and a huge
fisheries project spread over several square kilometres just along the
periphery of the Sundarbans. I believe it exports shrimp, prawns and crabs when
other marine and freshwater fishes are sold in the national markets.
After an hour drive through smaller rivers we reached
Laodobe forest office sitting on the bank of a large canal through which
tankers transport sea water for the fish farm.
Here
the canopies of the forest trees were forming a bridge over the canal where Rhesus
Macaques were busy eating fruits of Keora tree, Sonneratia apetala, shoots and
fruit buds of other mangrove trees.
The largest of the drongos of Asia is the Greater
Racket-tailed Drongo, which abounds Sundarbans in good number. As it flies over
the forest canopy or the canal its tips of two tail feather streamers kept
flying like ribbons presenting a spectacular view.
Its soliloquy is imitation of songs and call notes of
several other birds sharing its habitat.
A sub-adult Crested Serpent Eagle was drying its
wings perched on top of a dead branch.
Most rewarding was the sighting of the Ruddy
Kingfisher- one of the eight species of kingfishers- found only in the
Sundarbans. Nowhere else in the subcontinent can one find such a large
diversity of kingfishers in a forest.
This year the water level in the canals and rivers
were much higher than the previous years. So we could not land on the bank of
the Laodobe canal as there was no dry place.
We got down to the forest jetty and walked through
the office and accommodations for the foresters built on stilts.
To my surprise I found two frogs taking shelter on
the curved side of an empty shell of a coconut floating in water. A juvenile,
non-venomous snake also took shelter on a piece of dead plant. Mynas were busy
gathering food from the plants instead of the ground.
On our return journey back to launch just before
sundown a Monocled Cobra (Naja kaouthia) delighted us as it crossed the canola
right in front of our boat.
We followed it until it went ashore and climbed a
Baen shrub (Avicennia alba) on the bank of the canal bordering a village.
Seeing us the villagers gathered around to see the
cobra. Our persuasion saved the life of the cobra as they were up in arms with
sticks and pipes to nab it down.
PART
2
On
the 2nd, we moved towards a forest office at a market place in a village named
Nalian.
This was an Aila impacted area. I walked through almost the whole area in about
three hours. I met some people and talked to them about their problems.
Almost four months after the Cyclone Aila, the villagers were still without any
permanent source of freshwater because all their ponds and other freshwater
bodies had been inundated by salt water. Neither the government agencies nor
national and international NGOs have been able to solve this water problem. But
villagers are not sitting idly. They have developed several local methods of
collecting rain water.
Although most of them are living in temporary huts built over the embankments
that are the highest grounds in the area – with GolPata– a coconut leaf like
fronds of Nypa Palm (Nypa fruticans) harvested in large quantity every year
from the Sundarban. On all buildings, the rainwater that drops on the
corrugated iron sheet or GolPata roofs, are harvested by channelling it to
large water pots or Motka. Some houses have dug drains in their compounds to
retain rainwater to be used for washing. A small segment of the people received
government supplied canned water infrequently.
People living around and moving inside the Sundarbans are almost entirely
dependent on the harvested rainwater reserved in large ponds around forest
offices, own and community maintained fish ponds and ditches. Aila has
devastated all such water reservoirs.
Despite all the negative things, I found a huge bee-hive just above man-height
in a private compound teeming with life. The hive was more than a metre in
length and nearly 75cm in width. There could be more than 10,000 Apis dorsata
bees in the hive! The land owner told me that during the past five months, when
the bee colony settled in his compound, he harvested honey thrice. Last time he
got four litres of honey from this nest and a good quantity of beeswax. Honey
is like a liquid gold for the people living around the Sundarbans as it always
has a good market value.
Lone Sodom’s apple (Calotropis gigantea) survives at the side of the embankment
that passed through the whole of Nalian. Carpenter bees gathered over it and
engrossed into drinking the nectar. We found two types of frogs on the bank of
the River Shibsha when Magpie Robin was foraging through the marketplace and
Black drongos perched atop damaged electric line swooping on passing
dragonflies.
The day was windy and rainy. So, as a group, we did not do much work other than
watching the fishing activities of groups catching bony fishes, crabs and collecting
shrimp larvae.
Our launch headed for the next forest station–Ada Chai–after mid-day and
reached the spot by sundown. On my insistence, some of us were allowed to leave
the launch and go to the forest office.
Not unexpectedly, I found a few common toads in the accommodation area of the
forest office, as common house geckos were heading towards the solar powered
lamps and frogs started croaking from the nearby bush. Most rewarding was the
sight of a rare kind of wasp nest in the toilet of the forest office that I
always try to visit in anticipation of spider nests, toads, snails and lizards.
At night, I could hear at least two species of Nightjars and three species of
owls when a local insect called Kewra puka or Kewra insect swarmed inside our
lighted sleeping cubicles and another tiny bug or mite, called Baira puka bit
us, for which I had a severe allergic reaction to my body while the rest of my
compatriots absorbed its bite without any allergies.
On the third day, some of us opted for the early morning bird watching trip on
board the wooden boat. The majority were on the boat before sunrise after
having hot tea with biscuits and bananas.
After an hour’s drive through rivulets and canals, we were in the middle of the
Sundarbans where we could see human souls but the area was filled with sounds
of birds and loud calls of monkeys, crows, pheasant and red jungle fowl. It was
so peaceful that we could even hear the sounds of crabs going in or coming out
of their muddy holes when mudskippers changed positions while moving over soggy
land.
In one area, the banks covered a dwarf palm tree locally called Hental,
Mangrove Palm (Phoenix paludosa), dappled with red fruits. Birds like the
bulbuls, mynas and orioles were relishing the ripened dates.
A Honey Buzzard, Shikra and a Brahminy Kite flew over our boat as woodpeckers,
nuthatches, flowerpeckers and sunbirds crossed the canals time and again. By
9am, we had to return to the launch to finish breakfast and then headed for a
visit to the oldest known temple inside the Sundarbans.
As we were to walk through a patch of forest, generally infested with
tigers, we were given two forest personnel with automatic weapons the day we
started our journey. We took both a speed boat and a country boat so that 20 of
us could comfortably sit and gun holders could have a better view of all of us
and the passage.
From Ada Chai forest office, we had additional forest personnel to lead us to
the temple. We covered over six to seven kilometres before we found the narrow
canal that allows for only one boat to pass at a time. The moment our boat
entered a few metres inside this canal, we found fresh pug mark of a tiger that
just crossed the canal in a hurry hearing our noise. About 200m from the mouth
of the canal we anchored the boats and started walking in a tight row with one
gunman at the head and one at the rear end. Another tiger crossed the head of
the row, just 25m from the temple that is called Shibsha Temple.
It is believed that the temple is 600 years old, built by Hindu Raja of the old
24 Parganas District in the West Bengal State of India. On our way to the
temple, we saw lots of potteries and bricks lying around, indicating that there
was a small settlement when the temple was built. Till date, people visit the
temple during the beginning of the winter season.
The temple is now no more than a ruin, with over-grown climbing figs and
lianas. Bricks are small and are cemented with lime and sand.
We could smell the scent of a tiger from within and around the temple. A few
insect bats were hanging from the inner roof. There was no other animal in it.
From the canal to the temple, the distance may not be more than 200m but it
took us more than 45 minutes to cover this distance because the forest floor
was covered with breathing roots or pneumatophore of mangrove plants. The mud
was knee deep and that restricted our easy movement. Some have had to leave
behind the shoes in knee deep mud and walk barefooted making it more difficult
to negotiate the path.
It is said that every year, a few pilgrims and boatmen are killed by tigers
living around the temple when they come to perform their puja here. We were
lucky as we produced a lot of noise to scare the tigers away. We returned to
the launch right at lunch time but I went back to the Ada Chai office to watch
birds and I was rewarded. I saw a flock of bird busy gathering a loose party of
mixed species of insects as its food.
By late afternoon, our team leader decided to move towards the next forest
station at Pat Costa, along the Hangsha Raj rivulet–a segment of the main river
Shibsha.
When cruising through the main Shibsha, both banks were virtually covered with
15m high Kewra trees like two green walls. As it was high tide, we could see
just a handful of spotted deers grazing on the flat river bank and rhesus
macaques also picked freshly sprouted grass blades there. A few common or barn
swallow followed our launch and hawked for insects from the water surface. This
is a passage for migrants heading towards the south.
Little before sunset, we reached Pat Costa. Our leader Khashru went to the
forest office as we took the country boat headed for birdwatching. One of my
compatriots, an ardent birdwatcher, photographer and dentist by profession, is
Ronald Halder. He could imitate a few bird calls. He did manage to entice a
very secretive but vocal Mangrove Pitta that is restricted to the Sundarban
mangrove forest. By replying to Halder’s call, the pitta almost came towards
the lighted side of a tree when one junior colleague coughed and the pitta
disappeared immediately. However, we saw a few woodpeckers, canopy and
shore-dwellers.
On return to Pat Costa, we found Khashru had purchased crabs from the crab
fishers. I went down to the office looking for toads and frogs. Here I found
several species of toads and frogs which I had not seen before. Few large Tokay
geckos also came out of hiding from under the building and stood on long
stilts. We made a journey break here.
The morning of the fourth day was very damp and rainy. We tried to move to the
area most devastated by Aila, at Aangti Hara (meaning lost ring). We reached
this small village with police and coastguards before mid-day. We walked
through the village and met local people and officials and took a stock of
their situation.
Here also, the main problem is the lack of freshwater. Like others they are
mostly dependent on rain water and their temporary shelters are all on the
embankments because the villages remained submerged in the cyclone water.
Fortunately, there is still a deep tubewell working that is pumping freshwater
used solely for drinking.
After lunch we started our return towards the divisional head quarter in Khulna
from where we had started our launch journey in the first place. By nightfall,
we reached Khulna and boarded a 10:30pm Dhaka bound air-conditioned bus for an eight-hour
journey that will include a two to three hour wait for a ferry to cross the
river Padma.
At dawn, we reached the capital to see that the city received more rain than
the Sundarbans had and many of us could not leave the bus because no public
transport - rickshaws, taxis or three-wheelers - were plying the roads - the
majority of which got submerged due to torrential rain. To reach my house, I
had to wade through waist-deep, rapidly flowing water.
We wished we had spent more time in the Sundarbans but returned to the capital
in fear of excessive rain that had been forecasted there.
