BENGAL tigers in parts of India and Bangladesh are playing a
crucial part in halting climate change and protecting the
population, conservationists say.
The tigers, an endangered species, kill about 50 people a year
in the Sundarbans mangrove forest in Bengal - one of the largest
such forests in the world. But without the tigers, conservationists
say, the forest would soon disappear at the hands of humans,
leaving the low-lying area even more vulnerable to flooding and
storm surges.
A few hundred tigers are thought to live in the Sundarbans, and
they strike as people go into the forest for honey, or to collect
wood, or while they are out fishing. A conservationist from the
Society of Heritage and Ecological Research in Kolkata, Joydip
Kundu, said that the tigers played a vital part in the protection
of the mangroves. "It is fear of the tigers that keeps people out
of the forest. The moment you take the tiger out of the landscape,
the entire ecosystem will vanish. The tiger is protecting the
mangrove ecosystem, and it is because of the mangrove that the
entire south of Bengal is safe," he said.
Christian Aid has made a film, The Tiger, the Fisherman, his
Wife, and Our Future, to highlight the link between preserving
the tiger population and halting climate change in the region. It
features the experiences of people who have survived tiger attacks,
and also women whose husbands have been killed by the animal. One
of them, Minati Roy, said that she understood the importance of the
tiger. "The tigers are protecting the forest. If there were no
forests, no trees, there would be no life," she said.
Over the past 30 years, the Sundarbans region has lost more than
100 square kilometres of land to the rising sea - an area
equivalent in size to Manchester. The region is experiencing
relative sea-level rise at twice the global average. Scientists
predict that much of the Sundarbans will be under water by the end
of the century, and that this would lead to mass migration.
The Christian Aid film was created to highlight Christian Aid's
campaign One Million Ways, which encourages people to
share the ways in which they are helping to tackle climate
change.
www.christianaid.org.uk/ActNow/climate-justice/inspiring-stories/tigers/index.html