Fest themed on mangrove and tiger conservation showcases young saviours of Sunderbans
Telegraph | 3 February 2025
A girl was dressed as a mangrove tree. A boy was dressed as a tiger. The tree sheltered the tiger.
A short play featuring two students showed the interaction between a mangrove delta and its apex predator. It was part of a fest in the Sunderbans last week.
The fest, titled Bagh Mela, was themed on the conservation of tigers and the mangrove ecosystem.
The students were from 18 schools — all on the forest fringe areas such as Pakhiralaya, Dayapur, Rangabelia and Rajatjubilee — took part in the fest at Pakhiralaya near Sajnekhali.
The students were split into teams. Each team was allotted five minutes for an on-stage presentation. They came up with skits, extempores, songs, dances and recitations.
One play showed people catching crabs and fish in the Sunderbans. They become greedy and enter the forest to collect honey. More greed makes them chop trees. They are eventually nabbed by the forest department. But upon counselling, they realise their mistake and take the past to reformation.
The teams were also allotted stalls. They made models for display. One model showed a river separating a forest and a village. The forest has animals watching the humans on the other side.
A panel of judges selected the best schools based on the on-stage and off-stage performances.
“With nurturing, students will become the champions of conservation. But in general, they do not get enough exposure to the larger ecosystem,” said Joydip Kundu, the founder of the Society for Heritage and Ecological Research (SHER), an NGO that works to reduce human-wildlife conflict.
The January 29 fest was the latest in a series of nature-orientation programmes that SHER has lined up. They are part of Bagh Sankalp, an ongoing conservation awareness campaign run by the NGO — in collaboration with the HT Parekh Foundation and Sanctuary Nature Foundation — to strengthen the community’s pledge to save the Sunderbans tiger.
On January 2, a group of students went on a forest trip. They got to see a tiger in all its glory from a fenced watchtower inside the Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary in the Sunderbans.
For most in the group, it was the first sight of a tiger in the wild. Despite being sons and daughters of the soil, they are not familiar with the rich biodiversity of the mangrove forests, Kundu said.
On January 13, a workshop was organised for teachers as part of the same campaign.
Teachers from 28 schools took part in the workshop. It had audio-visual presentations and interactive sessions.
From 50 years of Project Tiger to the rising river pollution because of unregulated disposal of plastic and chemical waste and its impact on the Sunderbans wildlife, several topics were discussed.
“We aim to communicate conservation to students. Teachers are the best medium to do that,” Kundu said.