CASESTUDY TOPIC:Report on the impact of global warming on Sunderban National Park, West Bengal Submittedto: Prof. MANOJ ACHARYA Submitted by: SURBHI PARASHAR INTRODUCTION TO SUNDERBAN: The Sunderbans National Park is a National Park, a Tiger Reserve, anda Biosphere Reserve in West Bengal, India. It is the partof the Sunderban on Ganges Delta, and adjacent to Sunderban ReserveForest in the country Bangladesh. This delta is densely coveredby the dense mangrove forests, and also it is one of the largestreserves for the Bengal tiger, found mostly in India. It is also home to avariety of bird, reptile and invertebrate species, includingthe salt-water crocodile. The present Sunderban National Park was declaredas the major area of Sunderban Tiger Reserve in 1973 and declared as a wildlifesanctuary in 1977.
On 4 May 1984 this biosphere was declared a National Park. Thisis a UNESCO world heritage site in scripted in 1987. It isconsidered as a World Network of Biosphere Reserve in 2001.Thevery first Forest Management Division, to have jurisdiction over the Sunderbanwas then established in 1869. In 1875 a large portion of the massive mangroveforests was declared as reserved forestsunder the Forest Act, 1865.
The left away or remaining portions of the forestswere declared a reserve forest the following year and the forest, which was sofar administered by the civil administration district, was placed under thecontrol of the Forest Department. A Forest Division, which is the basic forestmanagement and administration unit, was created in 1879 with headquartersin Khulna, Bangladesh. The very firstmanagement plan was written for the period 1893–1898.In1911, it was illustrated as a tract of unchecked waste country and was excludedfrom the census. And then it stretched for about 266 kilometers from the mouthof Hugli River to the mouth of the Meghna Riverand was bordered inland by three settled districts of the 24 parganas, Khulna and Bakerganj.The total area was estimated at 16,900 square kilometers.
And it was a water-loggedjungle, in which tigers and a lot other wild beasts abounded. Attempts for thereclamation had not been very successful. The Sundarbans was almost everywhereintersected by the river channels and creeks, some of which did water communicationin the whole Bengal region both for the steamers andfor the native ships. Sunderban National Park is located between 21° 432?– 21° 55? N latitude and in between 88° 42?– 89° 04? E longitude. The overall averagealtitude of the national park is 7.
5 m above the sea level. 54 small islandsform up the park and several distributaries of the Ganges River intersectit. Action on the climate change needed to save the Sunderban:Unless and until immediate action is taken, the Sunderban National Park, itswildlife and the natural resources that hold millions of people may vanishwithin 60 to 90 years, stated by the study.
“The mangrove forest of the Bengal tiger joins the sea-ice of the polar bear asone of its habitats suddenly threatened as global temperature rise during the entirecourse of this century,” said Keya Chatterjee, acting director of WWF-USclimate change program. “To avert an ecological catastrophe on much largerscale, we should sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for theimpacts of climate change that we always failed to avoid.”Sunder bans as the world’s largest mangroveforest:The Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by India and Bangladesh atthe mouth of the Ganges River, is the world’s largest single block of mangroveforest. Mangroves are found at the inter-tidal region between land and sea, andnot only serve as breeding grounds for fish but help protect coastal regionsfrom natural disasters such as cyclones, storm surges and wind damage. Providing the habitat for between 250 and 400 tigers, the Sundarbans is alsohome to more than 50 reptile species, 120 commercial fish species, 300 birdspecies and 45 mammal species. While their exact numbers are unclear, thetigers living in the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh may represent as manyas 10 percent of all the remaining wild tigers worldwide.
Using the rates of sea level rise projected by the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the study’sauthors wrote that a 28 cm sea level rise may be realized around 2070, at whichpoint tigers will be unlikely to survive in the Sundarbans. However, recentresearch suggests that the seas may rise even more swiftly than what waspredicted in the 2007 IPCC assessment. EFFECT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ONSUNDERBAN:Due to climate change the Sundarbans faces severalchallenges. With rising sea levels, islands are disappearing and the Increasing salinity in the water and soil has severelythreatened the health ofmangrove forests and the quality of soil and crops. Additionally, there have been serious disturbances to Hydro logical parameters and change in fishing patterns,resulting in disastrous consequences for fishermen.
Frequent cyclones and Erratic monsoon raining pattern are damaging ecology and Humanity. WHAT EXACTLY IS GLOBAL WARMING: Global warming, also referred to as climatechange, is the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature ofthe Earth’s climate system and its relatedeffects. Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climatesystem is warming. Many of the observed changes since the 1950s areunprecedented in the instrumental temperature record which extendsback to the mid-19th century, and in pale climate proxy recordscovering thousands of years.
