Ecotourism in Sundarbans has come back to its pre-Covid time as over 1000 local and foreign tourists now visit the world’s largest mangrove forest. The authorities reopened the popular tourist spot, a UNESCO heritage site, in September last year after the pandemic restrictions were fully lifted.
“At the initial stage of withdrawal of the restrictions last year, we started receiving a significant number of tourists – both local and foreign. But the number has now increased further to its normal time,” Zia, a tour operator of Tour and Trips in Sundarbans, told the Daily Sun. During a visit to the Sundarbans last week, he told this correspondent that the eco-tourism in the mangrove forest was badly affected after the lockdown in tourism spots was imposed in March, 2020.
The Sundarbans mangrove forest covers an area of about 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles), of which forests in Bangladesh’s Khulna Division extend over 6,517 square km (2,516 square miles). In the West Bengal part of India, it stretches over an area of 3,483 square km (1,345 square miles) across the South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts.
The most abundant tree species in Sundarbans are said to be “sundari” (heritiera fomes) and “gewa” (excoecaria agallocha).
The forest provides habitat to 453 fauna wildlife, including 290 types of birds, 120 varieties of fish, 42 kinds of mammals, 35 species of reptile and eight amphibian species.
“We are also now finding tigers here occasionally. So, I can assure you that the number of tigers has increased in Sundarbans. But the number of birds has reduced due to the sound pollution,” Zia said. He also said, “Foreign tourists want a noise-free ecotourism. But some local tourists hold DJ parties inside the Sundarbans.” According to him, some tourists are also responsible for dropping litter around like plastic water bottles and other plastic waste materials in Sundarbans, polluting the biodiversity of the forest. “We should save this great forest which saved us from the devastating effects of cyclones like Sidr,” he emphasized.
While visiting different points including Kotka and Jamtoli, this correspondent also found the signs of destruction of the cyclone. The cost of a visit from Khulna Jail Ghat to different points of Sundarbans will amount to roughly Tk 9000-Tk 20,000. It may, however, vary depending on the ship’s capacity and the number of points it visits.This is the year of recovering the loss in the country’s ecotourism sector which was badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the people concerned said.
[source: Daily Sun]
