(IN): CNN- IBN Sunderban dying of global warming

April 22, 2007

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Sunderban dying of global warming

Sougata Mukhopadhyay

CNN-IBN

Posted Sunday , April 22, 2007 at 08:24

Updated Sunday , April 22, 2007 at 09:28

Sunderban: It's closer than you think and it's slightly worse than you

can imagine. Global warming is slowly claiming the Sunderban and as

the local boatmen and farmers only feel it in the drying lakes and

dying crops.

Nearly a half of the 102 Sunderban islands in India spread over nine

and a half square kilometers are uninhabited. The region has been

witness to an abnormal rise in the sea level in the last four decades.

This in turn has led to massive erosion. About a fifth of the southern

part of the delta, the heart of the tiger reserve is already submerged.

The threat of the Sunderban mangrove reserve on account of global

warming is now manifest not only at the level of some of the rare and

highly endangered species of flora and fauna, but also human habitat

near and far.

Forty six-year-old Poresh Mondol has been steering over the waterscape

of the Sunderban for over two decades and though he's never heard of

Global warming, every summer he is increasingly worried.

It continues to get hotter by the day. If this goes on, soon the river

will dry up and the Sunderban too might vanish.

At the current rate of erosion scientists see a loss of 15 per cent of

farmlands and more than 250 square kilometers of national park in the

next two decades. Agricultural yield too has been falling because of

rising salinity of the water and soil. Yet very few ask 'what on

earth' is going on.

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