Shrimp cultivation poses threat to Sundarbans

Despite being a major source of foreign currency, the existing method of shrimp cultivation in Bangladesh's south-western region appears to be a threat to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, experts have warned.

They said the direct and indirect impact of human intervention was causing slow but far-reaching changes affecting the delicate mangrove ecosystem of the Sundarbans, although many of these are not clearly visible.

But the most recent and significant cause of the gradual loss of the mangrove forest is the expansion of luxury shrimp industries in areas adjacent to the Sundarbans.

"We now understand that the current crude method of shrimp cultivation in the region is also affecting the regeneration capacity as well as the bio-diversity of the forest," a forest department official said.

The shrimp sector grew rapidly in the region in the early 1980s because of the fast economic returns that it gave, discarding the traditional agriculture, uprooting local vegetation and forcing the locals to indiscriminately exploit the Sundarbans.

The rapid expansion of unplan-ned shrimp farms around the forests eliminates the traditional fuel sources of the local people.

But the abandoning of the traditional agriculture and gradual disappearance of plants due to the permanent salinity required for shrimp farming forced the people to exploit the forest for fuel.

They collect leaves and fruits, and floating branches of dead trees from the channels and canals of the forest and dry them for use as fuel for cooking and other household purposes.

Leading environmentalist, Prof. Kazi Zakir Hossain, expressed his concern saying that such exploitation would not only damage the existing ecosystem of the forest but also hamper its regeneration and expansion in new areas.

The Sundarbans' ecosystem is characterised by a very dynamic environment due to the effect of tides, flooding, salinity and even cyclones.

The fragile and intricate mangrove ecosystem depends on many variable components like the tides, salt content in water and soil, duration of sunlight, contents of sediment and organic matter in water, temperature and density of seawater and fresh water.