Chakaria Sundarbans
 
| ||
Location of the Chakaria Sundarbans in Bangladesh |
The Chakaria Sundarbans were a mangrove forest in the Cox's Bazar district of the Chittagong Division , in the extreme southeast of Bangladesh , that was destroyed by human interference at the end of the 20th century. Their original area was about 182 square kilometers. The Chakaria Sundarbans were not part of the World Natural Heritage Sundarbans on the southwest coast of Bangladesh and in the Indian state of West Bengal . Sundarban literally means beautiful forest in the Bengali language .
Mangroves in Bangladesh
The mangrove landscape of Bangladesh is divided into three parts. In the southwest there are around 5700 square kilometers of natural mangrove forest , which together with another 4000 square kilometers of mangrove forest in the Indian state of West Bengal form the Sundarbans, the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world. The nature reserve designated as Sundarbans National Park in the Indian part was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987 . The wildlife sanctuaries designated in the Bangladeshi part also became world natural heritage in 1997. The protection of the mangrove forests in Bangladesh has a tradition that goes back more than 125 years. Mangroves are an indispensable element of coastal protection in a country that is largely only a few meters above sea level, they reduce the damage caused by tsunamis and cyclones and stabilize the coastline. The second significant mangrove area in the country are the plantations planted in the area of the mouth of the Meghna and on the offshore islands. These two mangrove systems lie on an approximately 380 km long coastline, which is characterized by the water of the river system Ganges - Brahmaputra -Meghna and the sediments carried along. At its 274-kilometer coastline of Chittagong Division , with the districts of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar , located away from the beaches and the buildings severely impaired remnants of mangrove forests. They include the Chakaria Sundarbans near the town of Cox's Bazar .
The mangroves of Bangladesh are unique not only because of their size, but also because of their biodiversity . Half of the mangrove species of the Indo-Pacific or 41 percent of the mangrove species known worldwide live in them. The Sundarbans of the southwest coast and India are among the few mangrove forests in the world that are home to large mammals . These include Bengal tigers and Indian elephants .
Location, geography and geology
The Chakaria Sundarbans are located in the former delta of the Matamuhori and some smaller rivers in the Cox's Bazar district of the Chittagong division . Historically, they were a multitude of islands separated from one another by river arms and tidal creeks and overgrown with grasses and mangroves. Unlike the mouth of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system, this delta does not extend as far as the Bay of Bengal , but is isolated from the coast and the tidal range by a chain of glaciers. There is a tropical rainforest climate, which, compared to the Sundarbans in the southwest, with an annual amount of 3500 millimeters, provides significantly higher amounts of precipitation. 80 to 85 percent of the rain falls during the monsoons from May to September. The six-month dry season peaks from February to April. The daily average temperatures fluctuate between 20 ° C and 32 ° C over the course of the year.
The soil of the Chakaria Sundarbans is sulfuric acid marshland , which contains a lot of jarosite and is interspersed with areas of extremely acidic soil. Due to the isolation from the sea, the Chakaria Sundarbans are no longer subject to daily flooding with brackish water or sea water . Instead, fresh water floods occur during occasional heavy rains and during the periodic floods of Matamuhori.
flora
The natural composition of the flora of the Chakaria Sundarbans largely corresponded to that of the Sundarbans on the southwest coast, with Heritiera fomes as the dominant mangrove. However, the salt content of the soil is significantly higher. For this reason, the mangroves remained smaller, with a maximum height of twelve meters, and salt-tolerant species were more common. The nipa palm was missing as well as the dominant in the rest of mangroves the coast of Chittagong Sonneratia apetala and Excoecaria agallocha . However, Sonneratia griffithii , the much more numerous Aegialitis rotundifolia and the Dalbergie Dalbergia spinosa were present . Only a small part of the Chakaria Sundarbans is still overgrown by mangroves , and most of them are just bushes. In 2010 only eleven trees of the once dominant Heritiera fomes were left .
| Art | Common name | family | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acanthus ilicifolius | Hargoza | Acanthaceae | |
| Aegialitis rotundifolia | Nuniagach | Leguminosae | |
| Avicennia alba | Sada baen | Acanthaceae | mangrove |
| Avicennia officinalis | Tiyan baen | Acanthaceae | mangrove |
| Bruguiera gymnorrhiza | Shelob | Rhizophoraceae | mangrove |
| Ceriops decandra | Goran | Rhizophoraceae | Undergrowth |
| Dalbergia spinosa | Ananta kata | Papilionaceae | |
| Excoecaria agallocha | Gewa | Euphorbiaceae | dominant mangrove |
| Heritiera fomes | Sundri | Sterculiaceae | dominant mangrove |
| Phoenix paludosa | Hental | Palmae | Undergrowth |
| Sonneratia apetala | Keora | Lythraceae | |
| Sonneratia griffithii | Lythraceae |
fauna
.jpeg)
The fauna of the Chakaria Sundarbans has not been adequately studied. In terms of its richness, it lags far behind that of the Sundarbans on the Indian-Bangladeshi border. For example, there is a lack of animal species such as the Bengal tiger, crocodiles or the axis deer . Nevertheless, the pristine Chakaria Sundarbans were an important center of biodiversity, which has largely disappeared as a result of environmental degradation in recent decades. From the known as crab-eater subspecies Macaca fascicularis aurea of cynomolgus monkeys , which does not occur in the southwestern Sundarbans, 2001, two groups with a total of thirty animals were reported. In 2010 these groups disappeared, the crab-eating macaque no longer belongs to the fauna of the Chakaria Sundarbans.
| Art | Common name | family | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prionailurus viverrinus | Fish cat | Cats (Felidae) | |
| Herpestes urva | Crab mongoose | Mongooses (Herpestidae) | |
| Hipposideros galeritus | Cantor round blade nose | Round-leaf noses (Hipposideridae) | |
| Todiramphus chloris | Collar reads | Kingfishers (Alcedinidae) | |
| Cacomantis sonneratii | Sunshine cuckoo | Cuckoos (Cuculidae) | |
| Rostratula benghalensis | Colored goldcock | Golden snipe (Rostratulidae) | |
| Dendrelaphis pictus | Spotted bronze snake | Adders (Colubridae) | |
| Cerberus rhynchops | Water snakes (Homalopsidae) | ||
| Limnonectes limnocharis | Dicroglossidae | ||
| Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis | Dicroglossidae | ||
| Pseudapocryptes elongatus | Oxudercidae | safe ( LC - Least Concern ) | |
| Acanthopotamon martensi | Potamidae | safe ( LC - Least Concern ) | |
| Lobothelphusa woodmasoni | Potamidae | safe ( LC - Least Concern ) | |
| Metapenaeus brevicornis | Flagellated shrimp (Penaeidae) | safe ( LC - Least Concern ) | |
| Metapenaeus monoceros | Flagellated shrimp (Penaeidae) | ||
| Palaemon styliferus | Rock and partner shrimp (Palaemonidae) | ||
| Penaeus indicus | Flagellated shrimp (Penaeidae) | ||
| Penaeus monodon | Black Tiger Prawn | Flagellated shrimp (Penaeidae) | Shrimp of great economic importance |
| Scylla serrata | Swimming crabs (Portunidae) | safe ( LC - Least Concern ) |
Economic use
Logging and inshore fishing for fish and shrimp was an important source of income in the Chakaria Sundarbans. Estimates assume an economic output of 200,000 to 900,000 US dollars per hectare.
The mangroves were the breeding habitat of prawns of economic importance, especially Penaeus monodon . The catch of the post-larval stages and young shrimp for further rearing in the shrimp farms of the country was an important source of income, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis were dependent on the catch, rearing and processing of the shrimp. The bycatch, mainly other shrimp and fish, was ruthlessly sorted out and thrown on the beaches in large quantities. There was a blatant disparity between bycatch and Penaeus monodon , which only made up 0.75 to 1.5 percent of catches. A study published in 1990 came to the result that for a single shrimp of the species Penaeus monodon, 14 other species of shrimp, 21 fish and 1631 other zooplankton animals were killed. The fishing method brought about a dramatic impairment of the rest of the aquatic fauna.
In 1977, as part of a government program to promote shrimp farming, 2,251 hectares of mangrove forest were cleared for shrimp farms. Another 694 hectares followed in 1982, 3577 hectares between 1985 and 1988, and in 1995 and 1996 the remainder was released for shrimp farming. The transformation of mangrove forests into shrimp farms has received massive support from the World Bank , the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program . To this end, small entrepreneurs who had no connection whatsoever with agriculture or fishing were given generous loans to purchase land and set up their businesses. Often the beneficiaries were city dwellers who leased the leased land to a chain of subcontractors who were able to dispose of shrinking land by the end of the chain. The few areas not used for shrimp farms were used for salt extraction and for settlements. The almost complete deforestation of the mangrove forest destroyed this habitat, with the result that the coastal fishermen and their families were deprived of the livelihood that had been used for generations. In the long term, the economic success of shrimp farming lags behind the damage it causes and the loss of opportunities through sustainable forestry and fishing or ecotourism.
Hazard and protection
All of Bangladesh's mangrove forests have already been destroyed or are in acute danger due to man-made damage. These include climate change and the resulting rise in sea levels, the loss of land due to clearing and overbuilding, but also the use as an area for shrimp farming . Multi-year use for this purpose regularly leads to environmental pollution to an extent that makes reforestation with mangroves impossible. The loss of the mangrove forests not only has dramatic consequences for the biodiversity of the areas directly affected. The lack of mangroves makes the now exposed land and the entire coastline vulnerable to soil erosion. The lack of protection provided by dense mangrove forests makes human settlements near the coast vulnerable to the effects of cyclones and tsunamis . Eventually the sediment load of the rivers is increased and the natural deposition patterns at their mouths changed.
The Chakaria Sundarbans were the oldest and after the Sundarbans on the southwest coast the second largest mangrove forest in Bangladesh. As early as December 1903, 8,510 hectares were placed under protection. 7490 hectares were protected as a reserve forest . An economic use was aimed for, for which a first use plan was submitted in 1913/1914. The remaining 1020 hectares were withdrawn from economic use as protected forests. In 1926 the British colonial administration leased 1,600 hectares to 262 landless families so that they could settle there. Maps made in the following 50 years show the Chakaria Sundarbans as a closed forest area, but the size of the population and the impairment of the mangrove forest caused by them increased steadily.
The last land use plan was presented at the end of the 1960s. At this point in time, the Chakaria Sundarbans were already in such poor condition due to overuse that the felling of timber was banned for ten years and targeted reforestation was ordered. In order to be able to satisfy the great demand for firewood and construction timber, the requirements were largely ignored. At the end of the 1970s the government program began to replace forest areas with aquaculture for shrimp farming . By 1986, thousands of hectares of mangrove forest were lost as a result, and within a few years the Chakaria Sundarbans were almost completely cleared. At the same time, the mangrove tree canopy death known as Top Dying Disease occurred, a plant disease that further reduced populations. In the 1980s, logging was completely banned, only the collection of firewood and non-forest uses are allowed.
Although the natural area of the Chakaria Sundarbans was considered to have been destroyed around the year 2000, a few years later a program to reforest the mangrove forests was started on the initiative of the IUCN . Such reforestation encounters great difficulties when there are no more remains of natural vegetation that can serve as a template for species composition. Only a few mangrove plantings had been carried out by 2014, and the land was still being used for shrimp farming and salt extraction.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Sundarbans , UNESCO website, accessed May 16, 2019.
- ↑ Sundarbans National Park , UNESCO website, accessed May 16, 2019.
- ↑ a b Prabal Barua, Md. Shah Nawaz Chowdhury and Subrata Sarkar : Climate change and its risk reduction by mangrove ecosystem of Bangladesh . In: Bangladesh Research Publication Journal 2010, Volume 4, No. 3, pp. 208-225, digitized .
- ↑ a b c d e A. K. Fazlul Hoque and Dilip Kumar Datta: The Mangroves of Bangladesh . In: International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences 2005, Volume 31, No. 3, pp. 245-253, ISSN 0377-015X .
- ↑ a b Apurba Krishna Deb: Fake blue revolution: environmental and socio-economic impacts of shrimp culture in the coastal areas of Bangladesh . In: Ocean & Coastal Management 1998, Volume 41, No. 1, pp. 63-88, doi: 10.1016 / S0964-5691 (98) 00074-X .
- ↑ a b c Saiful Islam Khan: Protecting the protectors: Lessons for adaptation strategies of mangrove forests from Bangladesh . In: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 2009, Volume 6, No. 38, doi: 10.1088 / 1755-1307 / 6/8/382025 .
- ↑ a b c Mohammad Sayed Iftekhar and MR Islam: Managing mangroves in Bangladesh: A strategy analysis . In: Journal of Coastal Conservation 2004, Volume 10, No. 1-2, pp. 139-146, doi : 10.1652 / 1400-0350 (2004) 010 [0139: MMIBAS] 2.0.CO; 2 .
- ↑ a b Md. Shahadat Hossain, C. Kwei Lin and M. Zakir Hussain: Goodbye Chakaria Sunderban: The Oldest Mangrove Forest . In: Wetland Science and Practice 2001, Volume 18, No. 3, pp. 19-22, doi : 10.1672 / 0732-9393 (2001) 018 [0019: GCSTOM] 2.0.CO; 2 .
- ↑ a b c Shahidul Alam et al .: Growth Performance of Mangrove Species in Chakaria Sundarban . In: International Journal of Ecosystem 2014, Volume 4, No. 5, pp. 233-238, doi: 10.5923 / j.ije.20140405.04 .
- ↑ a b Kazi Md. Fazlul Haq and AK Wodeyar: An Ecological Study of Habitat of Mangrove Forest of Bangladesh . In: Journal of Human Ecology 2002, Volume 13, No. 3, pp. 225-230, doi: 10.1080 / 09709274.2002.11905537 .
- ↑ a b Ainun Nishat et al .: Bio-ecological Zones of Bangladesh . IUCN Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka 2002, p. 36, p. 76-77, digitized .
- ↑ M. Tarik Kabir and M. Farid Ahsan: The present status and distribution of Long-tailed Macaque Macaca fascicularis aurea (Mammalia: Primates: Cercopithecidae) in Bangladesh . In: Journal of Threatened Taxa 2012, Volume 4, No. 1, pp. 2330-2332, doi: 10.11609 / JoTT.o2808.2330-2 .
- ↑ Mohammad Ali Azadi: Pseudapocryptes elongatus . In: IUCN Bangladesh (ed.): Red List of Bangladesh. Volume 5. Freshwater Fishes . International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka 2015, p. 227, ISBN 978-984-34-0738-2 .
- ↑ Muhammad Abdur Rouf: Acanthopotamon martensi . In: IUCN Bangladesh (ed.): Red List of Bangladesh. Volume 6. Crustaceans . International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka 2015, p. 131, ISBN 978-984-34-0739-9 .
- ↑ Mohammad Golam Quader Khan: Lobothelphusa woodmasoni . In: IUCN Bangladesh (ed.): Red List of Bangladesh. Volume 6. Crustaceans , p. 132.
- ↑ Mostafa Ali Reza Hossain: Metapenaeus brevicornis . In: IUCN Bangladesh (ed.): Red List of Bangladesh. Volume 6. Crustaceans , p. 108.
- ↑ a b M. S. Islam, MM Islam and SU Ahmed: Observation on the Damage of Shell and Fie-Fish Larvae During Collection of Shrimp Fry (Penaeus monodon) in the Estuaries of Bhola District, Bangladesh . In: Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences 1999, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 1096-1099, ISSN 1028-8880 .
- ↑ Mohammad Ali Azadi: Scylla serrata . In: IUCN Bangladesh (ed.): Red List of Bangladesh. Volume 6. Crustaceans , p. 130.
- ^ A b c M. AM Siddique: Destruction of hundred year's oldest mangrove Chakaria Sunderban forest: socio-economic impact on coastal communities . In: Farid Dahdouh-Gouebas and Behara Satyanarayana (Eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference: Meeting on Mangrove ecology, functioning and Management (MMM3). 2-6 July 2012, Galle, Sri Lanka . Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee, Oostende 2012, ISBN 978-90-817451-6-1 , p. 174, digitized version (full volume).
- ↑ a b c d Jayampathy Samarakoon: Issues of Livelihood, Sustainable Development, and Governance: Bay of Bengal . In: Ambio. A Journal of the Human Environment 2004, Volume 33, No. 1-2, pp. 34-44, doi: 10.1579 / 0044-7447-33.1.34 .
- ↑ Brojo Gopal Paul and Christian Reinhard Vogl: Impacts of shrimp farming in Bangladesh: Challenges and alternatives . In: Ocean & Coastal Management 2011, Volume 54, No. 3, pp. 201-211, doi: 10.1016 / j.ocecoaman.2010.12.001 .
- ↑ M. Akhter Hamid and Bruce R. Frank: Ecotourism Under Multiple-Use Management of the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest in Bangladesh: Issues and Options . In: Mohammad Alauddin and Samiul Hasan (eds.): Development, Governance and the Environment in South Asia. A Focus on Bangladesh . Macmillan Press, Basingstoke and London 1999, pp. 279-287, ISBN 978-1-349-27633-2 .
- ↑ a b c Md. Shahadat Hossain: Biological aspects of the coastal and marine environment of Bangladesh In: Ocean & Coastal Management 2001, Volume 44, No. 3–4, pp. 261–282, doi: 10.1016 / S0964-5691 ( 01) 00049-7 .
- ^ JG Kairo: Restoration and management of mangrove systems - a lesson for and from the East African region . In: South African Journal of Botany 2001, Volume 67, No. 3, pp. 383-389, doi: 10.1016 / S0254-6299 (15) 31153-4 .