Skip to footer

The Sundarbans mangroves hold a treasure-trove of nature

We loved every second of our day trip to the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and India.

|
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Tourist boats are docked on the Pashur River in Mongla, Bangladesh. Many of them will be booked to the Sundarbans.

| Mongla, Bangladesh

We thought we were going tiger-watching. We were thrilled.

The Bangladeshi town where staff photographer Melanie Stetson Freeman and I needed to base ourselves – to report an installment of the Monitor’s Climate Generation project – sat at the gateway to the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. To prepare for the excursion, I had read all about this lush expanse in Indian-born writer Amitav Ghosh’s novel “The Hungry Tide.” And I had heard that tours to spot the elusive Bengal tigers living within the protected area are a top attraction in Bangladesh.

We built in some extra time to report on this, not realizing that any attempt to spot these tigers takes days that we didn’t have in our packed schedule (and dollars that we didn’t have in our budget). So our local assistant helped us book a day trip instead to the edge of the forest, which straddles Bangladesh and India.

OK, so it wasn’t a five-night cruise. We still loved every second of it – the breeze on the deck of our color-splashed boat, the rhesus macaques gobbling up bananas at Karamjal Forest Station, our stroll along raised wooden platforms over ancient mangrove roots that help protect the shoreline from storm surges. We even spotted a playful riverine dolphin – also heavily featured in “The Hungry Tide.”

Then it started to pour, so we headed to the lower deck, almost at the water’s surface. As the boat noisily chugged along, we had a perfect view of Bangladesh, whose culture revolves around hundreds of waterways that zigzag across the nation – like so many tiger stripes. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
A rhesus macaque and her infant rest at Karamjal Forest Station. The Sundarbans is also home to the elusive Bengal tiger.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Tourists stroll on a raised wooden walkway and bridge over ancient mangroves. The roots help protect the shoreline from storm surges.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
A boy feeds some greens to a spotted deer at Karamjal Forest Station.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Roots stick out of the water along the Pashur River, Sept. 23, 2023, in the Sundarbans park, which straddles India and Bangladesh.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Boys stop their soccer game in the rain to pose for a photo across the river from the Sundarbans as a boat carrying tourists floats by.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to The Sundarbans mangroves hold a treasure-trove of nature
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2024/0616/sundarbans-mangroves-bangladesh-india
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe