Umashankar Mandal tries to restore Sunderbans’ ecological balance by mangrove plantation and raising public awareness.
New Delhi: The significance of the mangrove plantation was highlighted during the cyclone Aila that had swept the Sundarbans which comes under South 24 Parganas. Umashankar Mandal, often known as the Mangrove Man, teaches geography at Jangipur High School in Murshidabad and lives on the remote islands of the Sundarbans. His efforts to restore ecological balance in the Sundarbans through mangrove plantation and to raise public awareness about the benefits of mangrove trees have earned him the title of “Mangrove Man”.
Sharing his journey with The Sunday Guardian, Umashankar recalled, “I started my journey in 2009 when cyclone Aila hit the island. The idea came up when we saw that the people, homes, and animals had all sunk and drifted away. We started a relief campaign for the people, many people from Kolkata and nearby areas came to help us. Again, when I visited the Sundarbans in July, I noticed that the environment (landscapes and various types of mangrove trees) had been destroyed. We began working on restoring the ecological balance by engaging almost 220 villagers who used to collect Avicennia alba (plant) seeds. All their efforts and the plantation drive have helped to reduce carbon emissions, soil erosion, and so forth. At present, including the areas of Kakmari, Sonaga, Kumirmari and Chorghiri, we have planted 7,40,500 trees. We want to get people involved in planting more trees.”
To keep his ideas alive, he continued to encourage people by distributing food and maintaining other basic supplies that are required on a daily basis to support their families. His family and friends had always been supportive of him, and they were the first to persuade several villages to volunteer for free in the plantation effort. Despite the fact that no political party offered to help him in his mission, he did not bother to seek assistance from any prominent politicians or forest officials. He also needed to take out a Rs 3 lakh loan to kickstart his ideas and hire people to complete his mission. Reminiscing about his journey, he stated, “Initially, the funding was an issue as nobody knew me. Now that the plantation drive has been successful, we’ve noticed that tigers, as well as various species of birds, are frequent visitors in many dense forest locations; when villagers go fishing, they see a variety of fish species, especially in Chorghiri, which is an extreme village of the southeastern part of Sundarbans.”
From time to time, he along with his team, conducts various camps and relief campaigns for the villagers while carrying out mangrove plantations. He also works with students from several nearby primary schools to raise awareness of the benefits of mangrove planting. After gathering primary data from numerous villages, he came to the conclusion that around 22-30 families in these villages earn roughly around 3 lakh per month by fishing during peak season and on regular days, they earn around 1 lakh per month.
During Cyclone Yaas, embankments were breached as water levels rose, but the dense mangrove forest, which was the result of a 10-year plantation, protected many villages.
Currently, there are more than 350 members in his team—Purbasha, a platform that aims to gather more individuals to encourage plantation drives in Sundarbans. Earlier, most of the villagers were not aware of the benefits of mangrove plantation since the forest department committee or any other government officials never took any initiative to raise awareness about the benefits of mangrove plantation amongst villagers. Sharing his thoughts on how mangrove plantation helps Sundarban, he told this paper, “It helps in the reduction of carbon emission, reduce soil erosion, and fishing development. The behaviour of Sundarban tigers, also, depends on the density of the forest, as, it has been observed that when the density of the forest is lost, tigers from several areas of Sundarban, change their territorial directions, and as a result, they create a lot of ruckus in other villages of different areas.”
Umashankar Mandal is the first Indian to receive the Dr Rimington Award, World Wildlife Fund, for his contributions to the conservation of wild tigers. His 12-year journey is now well-known in India and abroad, and several videos of his plantation drive initiatives have gone viral on social media. His individual journey has now evolved into a collaborative effort to conserve the tigers and restore the ecology of the beautiful Sundarbans.