Global Warming in the Sunderbans

The coastal region of West Bengal, known as the Sunderbans, is a very fertile but fragile ecosystem. Tidal rivers have embankments to keep water from the Bay of Bengal from penetrating the villages and fields during high tide. The specter of global warming puts the whole region at risk as rising ocean levels make the river embankments increasingly vulnerable. Rising ocean temperatures also make severe cyclones more common.

Cyclone Aila, fed by warm waters in the Bay of Bengal, battered this region last May. Most of the damage happened when rising saline water from the bay breached the river embankments and flooded low lying villages and fields. The worst affected areas were in the South and North 24 Parganas Districts, near the border with Bangladesh.

MCC India has a rural development project in North 24 Parganas near the town of Hasnabad in partnership with the Resource Development Foundation (RDF), a local development agency. Many of the villages and farmers’ fields, including the RDF agricultural demonstration center were flooded. MCC India, along with the West Bengal government and many other relief agencies, provided immediate food relief and shelter.

The flood was very discouraging to village self-help groups organized by RDF because many of their livelihood projects such as fish ponds and animal husbandry were destroyed. In addition, they worried that the saline flood water would negatively affect future crop yields for years to come. People said they had not experienced such a flood in recent memory.

Several weeks before Christmas, I took a three hour train ride to Hasnabad to see the situation. Achinta Das, our MCC India project officer working with this project, and several RDF members accompanied me. Some of the progress made since the flood was encouraging. Farmers were busy harvesting rice on fields that had not experienced severe flooding. They reported that abundant rainfall after the flood had helped wash the salinity out of the soil. The saline water had been pumped out of ponds and new fish were introduced.

Even so, this was a serious setback for the RDF projects and farmers in the region. The most low-lying fields had not been planted this year. The self-help groups had also lost their initial investments in fish and poultry projects. They were hesitant to go further into debt in order to start over. Some women were planting a field of vegetables that will be irrigated by a pond that had been pumped out and refilled with fresh water. They worried that the remaining salinity would, nevertheless, stunt the growth of the plants.

The most alarming thing I saw on this trip was the temporary repair the West Bengal government had made to the river embankment near Hasnabad. The steep mud embankment is reinforced with flimsy bamboo piles that keep the whole thing from sliding into the river. I saw it during low tide but the high tide water mark was clearing visible not more than a foot or two from the top of the embankment. It would not take much for the river to again breach the embankment and re-flood the whole area.