Cyclone Amphan ravages mangroves covering 40% of Sunderbans

KOLKATA: Vast swathes of mangroves forest — spanning over an area of about 1,600 square kilometres — in the Indian Sunderbans have been ravaged by Cyclone Amphan that had struck the state last Wednesday, as per an initial estimate of the state forest department.


While it accounts for almost 40% of the entire 4,000 sq kilometre-area — Sunderbans Tiger Reserve (STR) and South 24 Parganas forest division — foresters are worried over the possible impact.

“As per our initial estimate, about 1,600 sq km area in the Sunderbans has suffered damage,” said chief wildlife warden Ravi Kant Sinha. The news comes at a time when the Unesco World Heritage Site is already battling the onslaught of various components of climate change and the Forest Survey of India has pegged a loss of more than 2% mangrove cover in the delta between 2017 and 2019. The mangroves act as a natural shield for Kolkata from the impact of cyclones like Amphan.

What’s more, the storm has triggered siltation and opened up creeks that might have long-term impacts on the delta. “In the Vidya and Haldibari regions, some creeks have been opened up by the cyclone. It’s likely to change the tidal pattern and trigger erosion of islands,” said Sinha, adding that navigation route maps will also have to be redrawn for this.

State wildlife advisory board member Biswajit Roy Chowdhury said apart from erosion, opening up of creeks might lead to overflow of saline water into villages. “The villages will have to focus more on salt-tolerant rice varieties now,” he said.

Anurag Danda, senior visiting fellow with Observer Research Foundation, though, has a different take. According to him, in the overall scale, villages have probably suffered more damages compared to the forested islands. “The landfall happened close to East Midnapore coast. The speed was also lower compared to Cyclone Sidr in 2007 that had 1-minute sustained speed of 260kmph. Besides, the landfall didn’t coincide with high tide. So, on overall scale, I hope the forest areas in the Sunderbans won’t suffer much damage,” Danda said, adding that natural islands are higher compared to those with human settlements. Hence, according to him, height of inundation will be lower and happen over shorter duration in the forested islands, which also drain out water quickly.

No case of animal casualty or straying has been reported from the Indian Sunderbans ever since the cyclone had struck the region.

According to Danda, the vegetated loss will be compensated by the nature in the days ahead. “After Cyclone Sidr, experts had predicted it would take 40 years for the Bangladesh Sunderbans to revive, but that’s not exactly the case,” Danda said. He pointed to the example of Dhoblat village in Sagar block that was abandoned by people in 1843 after a series of cyclones, as per historical records, had struck it since 1833. “Nature (mangroves) has reclaimed the land there now,” he points out.

However, Danda sounded an alert over habitat/land loss due to erosion and sea-level rise in the Sunderbans.

Meanwhile, almost all the nylon net fencings to check tigers from entering human habitat has been damaged along a stretch of more than 107 kilometres. “We have taken up repairing jobs on a war-footing in Ramganga and Basirhat ranges where villages are located closer to the forested islands,” added Sinha.