zReportage.com Story of the Week #754: TUESDAY September 22, 2020: ‘SLOWLY SINKING SUNDARBANS’ from ZUMA Award Winning Photographer Supratim Bhattacharjee who covers long term projects in South East Asia: The sea is steadily eating into the Sundarbans, the world’s largest delta and mangrove forest, threatening an ecological disaster for the Bengal basin region, home to over 235 million people. The roughly 6,000 square mile forest delta stretches across the lower reaches of the Bengal basin, 60% falling in Bangladesh and the rest in the Indian state of West Bengal. Due to climate change the Sundarbans faces several challenges. With rising sea levels, islands are disappearing and the increasing salinity in the water and soil has severely threatened the health of mangrove forests and the quality of soil and crops. Mangroves provide a slew of benefits in addition to storing carbon, reducing flooding and erosion from storms, acting as nurseries for fish, and filtering pollutants from water. Thousands of villages along the coastal habitat are losing their natural defenses against climate change just as it intensifies. The World Bank suggests that by 2050, more than 13 million Bangladeshis including most of those on the margins of the Sundarbans might migrate because of climate related crises. The forecast in West Bengal is similarly alarming. Welcome to: ‘SLOWLY SINKING SUNDARBANS’
Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press
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