Why restoring Chakaria Sundarbans is essential

Chakaria Sundarbans, once a blessing for Bangladesh’s coastal environment, mainly covered parts of the Dulahazara and Badarkhali areas.

Although its destruction began with the establishment of settlements, the forest was cleared primarily to make way for shrimp farming.

The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and groups of influential local interests all contributed to its destruction in pursuit of their respective interests.

Grameen Bank, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning institution, also established an aquaculture project on 10 acres of land divided into 30 plots, which remains in operation today.

Chakaria Sundarbans was one of the oldest mangrove forests in the subcontinent. In the 1950s, it covered approximately 21,102 acres.

Subsequently, the authorities declared 18,508 acres as reserved forest and designated the remaining area as protected forest. Today, only a single sundari tree survives. On 24 July 2025, Prothom Alo published an investigative report titled “Chakaria Sundarbans: A mangrove forest killed by aid and greed”.

The process of leasing out Chakaria Sundarbans began in 1977. In 1985, the Ershad government accelerated the forest’s destruction by introducing a shrimp farming policy.

Under this policy, the authorities could lease any forest land suitable for shrimp farming to interested parties.

On 28 March this year, Prothom Alo organised a discussion at the Chakaria upazila parishad conference room to explore ways to restore Chakaria Sundarbans.

The meeting brought together Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman, forestry professors, experts, officials from relevant government departments and representatives of local civil society.

As someone who attended the discussion, I witnessed participants pledge their support for restoring the destroyed forest. Prothom Alo also published a special full-page supplement, highlighting the key points raised at the meeting.

The good news is that, according to a report published by Prothom Alo on 21 September under the headline “Hope for reviving Chakaria Sundarbans”, an NGO had planted 80,000 bain (Avicennia alba) trees across 25 acres along the Badarkhali Channel in Chakaria Sundarbans.

The survival rate of the bain trees has been encouraging. In June this year, another 40,000 bain trees were planted across a further 25 acres of the forest.

However, the ecosystem must first return to a healthy, natural state before large-scale tree planting can begin. The land must therefore be recovered before restoration efforts can proceed. For this reason, strong government intervention is particularly important.

According to Prothom Alo, Shaikh Faridul Islam, state minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said that although various organisations had received leases for land in the Chakaria Sundarbans area, 4,000 acres of forest land remained recorded in the name of the Forest Department. The government’s first priority is to reclaim this land.

Because the authorities have failed to demarcate land leased by the ministries responsible for fisheries, agriculture and land, leaseholders have also encroached on land belonging to the Forest Department. The government plans to cancel the other leases after reclaiming the forest land.

The question now is whether this process will fall victim to bureaucratic red tape.

Since the 1980s, Bangladesh’s shrimp industry has become part of the global supply chain. The existing global supply chain model, however, often encourages aggressive commercial practices.

Yet shrimp farming could have continued alongside the Sundarbans. Instead, Chakaria Sundarbans fell victim to the relentless pursuit of profit by those involved in the industry.

In the 1980s, shrimp ranked second only to the garment industry among Bangladesh’s export sectors. There is no doubt that the substantial profits from shrimp farming improved the financial circumstances of many people at the local level.

However, the industry has caused far more harm. Shrimp farming has contributed to numerous socioeconomic and environmental problems, including forest destruction, ecological imbalance, local disputes and conflicts, the leasing of land belonging to small-scale fish farmers, and the loss of land rights among poor local residents.

Researchers believe these problems could have been reduced if shrimp farming had maintained ecological balance rather than destroying the entire ecosystem.

Discussions with experts and local residents at a meeting organised by Prothom Alo in Chakaria on 28 March, along with consultations with other specialists, suggest that shrimp farming and mangrove forests can coexist through a system known as “silvofishery”. However, those involved must abandon the mindset of trying to take everything for themselves.

A roundtable discussion at the Prothom Alo office on 10 September also highlighted mangrove-based shrimp farming as a potential solution. Rising temperatures caused by climate change have increased shrimp mortality under conventional farming methods to 64 per cent.

However, maintaining mangrove vegetation around shrimp enclosures can lower temperatures and reduce the mortality rate to 50 per cent. Participants said trials of this method across 100 hectares in Paikgachha, Khulna, had produced these results.

At the discussion, however, Mohammad Amir Hosain Chowdhury, chief conservator of Forests at the Forest Department, recommended implementing this mangrove-based system outside the natural mangrove forests of the Sundarbans.

In other words, the authorities should test the method at a new location rather than in areas where natural Sundarbans forests still survive.

Chakaria Sundarbans would be an ideal site for such an initiative, as we have a responsibility to make amends for the historical damage inflicted on this forest.

In his 1926 study, “The Flora of Chakaria Sundarbans”, James Cowan listed 53 plant species found in the forest. Chakaria Sundarbans once provided a habitat for tigers, deer and numerous bird species. It also served as a breeding ground for fish.

The destruction of the forest has depleted local fish stocks. Restoring the forest would help lost wildlife return, increase marine fish breeding and maintain ecological balance.

The mangroves of the Sundarbans act as a natural barrier protecting coastal areas. Understandably, the coastal areas of Chakaria and Pekua face considerable risks from cyclones and storm surges.

Researchers believe that if Chakaria Sundarbans had remained intact, the 1991 cyclone would not have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in a single night.

Local residents who attended the discussion organised by Prothom Alo in Chakaria also said that the damage would have been considerably less if the forest survived. That cyclone struck the Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram regions particularly hard.

Experts believe that restoring Chakaria Sundarbans would help reduce the speed of powerful winds and protect nearby communities from the impact of storm surges.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that climate change and global warming will increase the intensity and frequency of cyclones in the future. Coastal forests are therefore essential to protecting people and other living creatures.

Scientists also recommend creating new forests beyond those that already exist. Yet we continue to destroy forests one after another. Restoring Chakaria Sundarbans, which once covered an area of 30 square kilometres, is therefore essential to our survival.

Mangrove forests can absorb far more carbon dioxide than ordinary forests. At a time of rising global temperatures, Chakaria Sundarbans could help keep local temperatures at tolerable levels by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.

According to recent research, coastal mangroves, including the Sundarbans, store at least 150 megatonnes of carbon per hectare. Based on this estimate, Chakaria Sundarbans, which covered approximately 8,498 hectares, could have stored 1,274,700 metric tonnes of carbon.

Mangrove forests serve as important carbon sinks and rank among the most effective coastal carbon ecosystems. Their destruction therefore causes two forms of harm simultaneously. When trees are cut down, the carbon they would have stored is released, compounding the damage.

Climate scientists consider diverse mangrove forests one of the key ways to strengthen resilience against the potential rise in sea levels caused by climate change. Mangroves also play a vital role in increasing land elevation through biogenic processes.

Coastal erosion, cyclones and other disasters cause extensive damage to coastal housing, fuel and sanitation systems, transport networks and infrastructure as a whole. Chakaria Sundarbans is essential to protecting these assets.

Researchers say mangrove forests reduce both the speed and the force of storm surges and strong winds. Coastal mangrove forests not only store carbon but also supply dissolved organic carbon to the sea.

Restoring the forest would provide sources of food, water, fish, grazing land for livestock, fuel, construction materials, medicines, wild foods, honey, grass and marine food resources.

These benefits would strengthen the local economy. Ecotourism could also develop around the restored forest, creating further economic opportunities.

Restoring Chakaria Sundarbans is not merely a matter of environmental activism; it is a struggle for our survival. We must learn from the extensive loss of life and property caused by the 1991 cyclone, when Chakaria Sundarbans no longer stood to protect the coast. Rebuilding this forest is essential to safeguarding the future of the next generation.

In its 21 September report, Prothom Alo identified four challenges to restoring Chakaria Sundarbans: leaseholders’ reluctance, disruption to tidal flows caused by embankments around polders and shrimp farms, soil degradation resulting from years of salt exposure and shrimp farming and changes to the natural flow of water.

However, several other challenges stand in the way of restoring Chakaria Sundarbans. One of the most significant is the international market for shrimp.

As mentioned earlier, the World Bank jointly implemented a shrimp farming project with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the 1980s.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) also ran a separate project. Although the World Bank withdrew amid criticism at the time, it resumed investment in shrimp farming across 14 coastal districts in 2018 under the Sustainable Coastal and Marine Fisheries Project (The Daily Star, 14 July 2026).

Another major challenge is the extensive industrialisation of Maheshkhali Island. Many trees have already been cut during the construction of the Matarbari coal-fired power plant.

In addition, forest clearance continues to make way for the Matarbari Port Access Road. Has anyone sought expert advice on how to carry out these projects without destroying the forest?

Many countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America have successfully restored lost mangrove forests. The key condition, however, is to restore the ecosystem of the area where the forest once stood to its original state.

This allows the mangrove forest to regenerate naturally. Political will, however, remains the most critical factor in achieving this goal.

During a visit to the Chakaria area, I learnt that most people across several generations were unaware that a vast forest known as Chakaria Sundarbans had once existed there.

However, as the issue has recently attracted media attention, future generations may learn that Chakaria Sundarbans could not be restored despite the availability of solutions. And the reason is lack of political will.