The Indian Sundarbans Delta (ISD), a biodiversity hotspot, is one of the largest mangrove forests and the only mangrove tiger land in the world, home to the charismatic Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera Tigris Tigris). Over the years, the region has received global importance for biodiversity conservation leading to the introduction of a protection regime with establishment of National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries and Reserved Forests. However, a strict and exclusionary protection regime has led to a long drawn conflict between the State Forest Department and the islanders, since majority of the human population rely on fishing, crab collection and honey collection from the mangrove forests for their livelihood. As a result, a large number of fishers are heavily penalised by the State Forest Department for fishing without securing eligible fishing permits to enter the mangrove forests. Amidst such a situation, the fishers try to evade the forest guards by hiding in narrow canals and creeks close to the forest land where many fishers have fallen prey to the tiger in the recent past. On top of such struggles, the islands are susceptible to climate-induced variabilities such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, mangrove cover depletion and land degradation which threaten the survival of the islanders in the delta. Recent extreme weather events like Bulbul, Fani, Amphan, Yaas, and the covid-19 pandemic have seriously affected the ability of the islanders to secure a decent living condition in the delta. Faced with numerous vulnerabilities, majority of the islanders continue to engage in forest based fishing and crab collection, prawn seed collection, or agricultural labour since alternative livelihood options are nil. Lately, a large population of the delta has found migrating to Southern States of India as manual labourers to be a viable livelihood option, free from the shackles of the Forest Department and from the fury of a hostile landscape.
This photo essay illustrates glimpses of people???s life and livelihoods in the island of Satjelia in Gosaba block, which is one of the 19 community blocks of the Indian Sundarbans Delta in South 24 Parganas, West Bengal. The photographs and relevant data were collected through case studies, semi structured interviews with the islanders and engagement in general observation during my field project in the Sundarbans delta.