Sunderbans district avatar can be a boon in preserving mangroves

Last Friday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee anno unced that the Sunder bans would be a new district Given the acute development deficit in the region, it is a wel come development.
It's not the first time such an announcement has been made by this government, but this time there is an end date to the process, which is less than a year from now. This timeline is crucial and an opportunity to make a world of difference for the people of the region, and conservation of a global natu ral heritage.
If not thought through wit hin the short time available, it is possible that the new Sun derbans district would be the most climate change-challeng ed district in the state in less than two decades.
The foremost issue is delineation of the new district and our apprehension is that the 19 blocks that currently comprise the Sunderbans are going to constitute the new district without taking into account the special needs of the areas with tidally active creeks. These 19 blocks spread across the two 24Parganas roughly represent the area that was under mangrove forest cover until the 1820s, demarcated by the DampierHodges line running from Kulpi on River Hooghly to Basirhat on Ichhamati.
What is now understood as the Sunderbans is home to 45% of the largest mangrove forest in the world, and the only mangrove tiger habitat, which is why it was tagged a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1987.This part of the new district should be non-negotiable not only for its intrinsic value but also for its instrumental value in terms of various ecosystem services. Compromising with the natural area would threaten the physical existence of the district in light of global climate change induced accelerated sea level rise and high intensity weather events. To ensure continued ecosystem services, the new district should have special provisions to accommodate the changing needs of ecosystem.
The other part of the Sunderbans is inhabited, where rain-fed agriculture is the mainstay of the economy made possible by the construction of earthen embankments to keep brackish tidal water at bay . Despite adequate rainfall, poverty in the Sunderbans is among the highest anywhere. To overcome persistent developmental challenges, the State Planning Board has often emphasised extending irrigation systems to allow for the cultivation of second crops, building and maintaining embankments, improving con nectivity (e.g., roads, bridges, culverts), extending the provision of drinking water and electricity services and improving marketing infrastructure.None of these is dispensable but inadequate to secure the population and pull them out of chronic poverty .
Developing skills to improve off-farm employment, improving education, and pursuing afforestation and natural resource management with community involvement are the way forward. All of these should be relatively easier in the new Sunderbans district since the region will not have to compete for attention and resources within the 24-Parganas.
Given the heavy impact that climate change is expected to have on the Sunderbans, the need to improve adaptive management and develop appropriate solutions for this unique system has become acutely urgent. The new district should be able to bring about the required changes in policy and governance within the broader context of physical limitations of a dynamic delta system, na tional development and human settlement management, and biodiversity conservation.Development planning for the new district can be simultaneously aimed at continued human development with reduced threats from extreme events, and in the long run, restoration of the mangrove ecosystem in areas where vulnerability of human settlements to sea level rise and extreme events is extremely high.
This is also the area with tidally active creeks indicating the ecological appropriateness of these areas for restoration of mangrove forests. Comprising 45 gram panchayats in six island blocks, barring Sagar and Namkhana, with 207 revenue villages would need special support and finances in terms of developing the capacity of the population to make off farmoff-ecosystem living from secondary or tertiary production activities. Planning for capacity building of this population of about a million should be a major activity at the outset necessarily preceded by exhaustive social audit.
Done intelligently , the new Sunderbans district could become demographically the largest adaptation site in the world and beneficiary of global adaptation finance. Else, it could be the case of Emperor's New Clothes where no one believes the government, but everyone believes that everyone else believes the government.
(Sugata Hazra is director , School of Oceanic Studies at Jadavpur University, and Anurag Danda is head, climate change adaptation programme at WWF-India. Both have worked extensively in the Sunderbans)