Local Ecological Knowledge and Conservation in the Sundarban Mangrove Forests
Md. Abul Bashar Polas is conducting research on the Bangladeshi Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem. In a dialogue with Imke Horstmannshoff, he speaks about how he came to examine social-ecological interactions in this unique landscape.
Good to have you with us, Polas! To start, what is your background? What are you exactly focusing on in your current research project?
I am an agro-environment-based early-stage researcher, with both a bachelor's and master’s degree in Agricultural Economics. Additionally, I have a second MSc degree in Environmental Sciences.
My research interests are centered around local and urban ecosystem management, nature-based solutions for risk and disaster management, and the management of landscapes, as well as natural and cultural heritage. In broader terms, I am interested in issues of sustainable development and climate change.
Currently, I’m pursuing a PhD in the Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems research group (SEIAS), jointly supervised by Prof. Tobias Plieninger and post-doctoral researcher Dr. Emmeline Topp. The project is entitled
“Local Ecological Knowledge and Participation in Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Management: The Case of Local Communities in the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest in Bangladesh”.
The objective is to identify the level of environmental knowledge of locals in the Bangladeshi Sundarbans. By doing so, I aim to relate scientific management models and theories of ecosystem management to the concept of Local Ecological Knowledge.
How did you come to this PhD project?
While studying for my master’s degree in Environmental Sciences at the University of Cologne, Germany, I was given the opportunity to visit some wonderful landscapes through academic programs, such as the Great Nile in Egypt, and indeed the Great Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh. In my present research, I am adding up experiences I obtained through various stakeholder-based fieldworks in India, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Germany. These experiences along with my master’s specialization on the topic of sustainable forest management sparked my interest in the study site, and, more generally, in interlinkages between society and ecology.
The somehow unusual mix of concepts, methods and approaches, e.g. focusing on environmental sustainability, local and indigenous knowledge and social-ecological interactions, led me to the SEIAS group. The fact that the project would contribute to the UN-SDG’s 2030 agenda motivated me further in pursuing this doctoral research.
What were these fieldwork trips about?
As a research fellow at the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne, I collaborated in the DAAD-funded project “Remapping the Global South-Natural Heritage as New Common”. Through a field survey I conducted in November and December 2018 in the Indian part of the Sundarbans, I gained in-depth knowledge on management and conservation approaches there, based on local stakeholders’ responses.
Moreover, within the frame of my master thesis, I conducted another field survey in the Bangladeshi part of the forest, which allowed me to understand how local environmental knowledge and management practice varies from country to country. Lastly, another field survey in the Nile basin within the context of the International Summer School project “Cultural and Natural Heritage on the First Cataract of the Nile” pushed me back to the Sundarbans landscape again to study further, as it is more than natural and cultural heritage. Accordingly, I could connect my expertise to my recent project features.
Let us know more about the Sundarbans. What exactly did you find out about conservation approaches there?
The Sundarbans are a UNESCO cultural and natural heritage site, a global hotspot of biodiversity, partly located in Bangladesh and in India. Although both parts have almost the same geographical structure, there are differences in management approaches, experts’ points of view, degrees of community involvement, and governmental initiatives.
The Sundarbans in India cover almost half of the total area of the mangrove forest. They are the sum of 104 islands. During my research stay there, I conducted interviews with members of different bodies related to conservation management, e.g. university specialists, members of the forest administrative body, local people, and tourists. The administrative body of the Sundarbans mangrove forest is working hard to protect the forest against natural and man-made damages. A total of 2.585 km² of the core zone and 1.699 km² of the buffer zone are organized properly with various duty stations and patrol posts. If an area loses trees due to an unwanted event, the forest authority immediately starts a plantation program and fills the fellow lands.
According to one forest officer, the whole property is managed by a Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) actively collaborating with local people. Two types of guards observe the forest, namely fencing duty and patrolling duty. As legal stakeholders, local people are also involved here, thus working for the conservation of the forest. To protect villagers from wild animals, especially from tigers, the FD created a plastic fence in the buffer zone — basically a border between humans and the biosphere.
Additionally, the Forest Department leads several programs for social and environmental awareness and alternative livelihood. As part of the alternative livelihood program, the Forest Department (FD) supplies small funds and materials for fish culture, chicken farming, etc. to local people in collaboration with the government.
How do they think the forest could be protected?
Specialists are always aware of unwanted damages of the mangrove forest due to climate change and its negative impacts on the global environment. According to Prof. Ramanathan, a specialist on the coastal environment and particularly the mangrove forest from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the restoration of mangroves would be the most feasible and effective way to protect the mangrove forest and conserve it for the future. Further conservation techniques for the mangrove forest are:
- stopping urbanization,
- the reduction of domestic affluence, and
- the maintenance of freshwater flow.
Investigating the reasons behind climate change is another possible path since this is the strongest natural driver of environmental imbalances. Moreover, maintaining watersheds and salt-water desolations would also be of help, as Prof. Raju (a hydro-geological expert at JNU, India) has delineated.
Recently, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) completed a project with several Southeast Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, which is called “Mangrove for the Future”. The main objectives were conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of the coastal ecosystem. They conclude that empowering local communities and engaging them in decision-making would improve the sustainable use of the coastal ecosystem.
How do local people relate to the Sundarbans, and what are their livelihood strategies?
The interviews in the Indian part were conducted with locals in the Rajat Jubilee village, which is only 100 meters away from the forest boundary. They were very curious and interested to share stories about what they observed while performing livelihood activities. One of the respondents, an elderly man, had been working in the Sundarbans for 35 years. Previously, he collected fish, honey, tree leaves, and other utilities from the Sundarbans illegally. In the past 5-10 years, however, it has not been possible to enter the forest without a Boat Licence Certificate (BLC), the charges of which vary in the two countries. In India, one BLC counts for one boat and costs around 30-50.000 rupees (around 400 USD) per year. One boat contains 5-6 people, and each one is obliged to pay a minimum of 200 rupees (around 2,50 USD) per day.
Concerning dependency on the Sundarbans, another male respondent clearly stated that “if the earning member of a family depends on the Sundarbans for his livelihood, we may say the whole family is dependent on the Sundarbans”. In the past years, the livelihood situation has changed a lot: Today, only about 50 percent of the villagers are still dependent on the Sundarbans. Local people are engaging with additional income-generating activities such as rice cultivation, small farming, and small and medium enterprises (SME) in the nearest port Gosaba village.
Reasons behind this shifting of professions are administrative difficulties and local people’s fear of the Royal Bengal tiger. Regarding the overall situation in the Indian part, people do have electricity, roads are constructed, and a primary school for children exists in the village mentioned. However, a hospital is urgently needed: In case of serious health damages they have to go to the nearest city Kolkata, which is about 100 km away, and also communication is not smooth.
Local people are very conscious of the necessity of the Sundarbans and their usefulness to the global environment. This is partly due to the awareness-raising activities of the forest authorities. Through these, local people are supported by the Indian government quite strongly. To reduce their dependency and make them engage with alternative earnings, regional and state governments are providing 2kg rice/family and 16 kg rice/family each month during the down periods.
Other actors are also involved: The NGO Purbasha Ecotourism Society is working for the conservation of the Sundarbans through the plantation of Sundari trees, awareness-raising activities, and publishing articles. During my entire stay with the local people, I got a very strong impression that they are true conservators, working together with the forest authority to protect the mangrove forest (impression based on field data, 2018).
Do you have a hypothesis? How could local ecological knowledge (LEK) be harnessed for mangrove forest conservation?
LEK could be an important conservation tool, because locals are the primary witnesses of locally-based landscape damages due to environmental stresses, e.g. storms, cyclones, droughts. Therefore, it is high time to prioritize the experiences of local people facing adaptation and mitigation challenges and to effectively involve them in future ecosystem management. This is why I am strongly motivated to conduct this study: I aim to bridge between environmental practitioners and local stakeholders, thus facilitating knowledge exchange that can lead to sustainable development.
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