Future conservation warriors spend a day in the Sunderbans observing its biodiversity
Telegraph | 23 March 2025
• Conducting a water quality test in the Sunderbans to find its oxygen content and levels of salinity and acidity.
• Observing the biodiversity of the mangroves and wondering at mudskippers, fish that walk on land but when the water inundates the mud banks, they go into small chambers with oxygen pockets below the mud where they breathe and survive till the water recedes.
A group of undergraduate students of St Xavier’s College spent a day in the Sunderbans and observed its wetlands, biodiversity, and mangroves.
Visuals that had so far been confined to textbook words leapt out into reality for these young people.
Twenty students from different departments pursuing a course in Wetlands Ecology and Environment learned about the threats to the environment, the need for conservation and how wetlands that are a source of food and water are gradually depleting.
“We need to enable the youth of the country to understand the conditions that they or people around them are going to face in the next 20 years. These students will graduate soon and take up important positions. Not necessarily be a conservationist practitioner in an NGO, but may be a district magistrate, a lawyer or a journalist, who can bring a change,” said Tiasa Adhya, the principal instructor of the course.
The team led by Adhya included students and senior teachers.
St Xavier’s College started the course in January and the first batch of students will finish in April.
“There is a need to spread awareness among students on wetland conservation so they can be conservation warriors,” said Father Dominic Savio, the college principal.
“The field trip is an example of experiential learning. It provided students hands-on participation in activities and exposure to the environment, which is the subject of their course,” said Father Savio.
Adhya told her students that wetlands need not have standing water throughout the year. “A muddy substrata without standing water for six months a year also qualifies as a wetland. Certain plants are capable of surviving in inundated and flooded conditions,” she said.
Subashini Das, a mathematics student, said the trip made the concepts clearer.
“It is one thing to read about something or to learn about it in class, but another to see it. The diversity in the wetlands sustains itself in ever-changing conditions,” Das said.
The wetlands not only store water but purify it, the students learnt.
“The wetlands have to be conserved rather than be allowed to be filled up with encroachments. The wetlands help to detoxify water,” said Jancy Joseph, who studies English.
The students conducted a quality test to see the alkalinity of water.
“We know that the water level in the Sunderbans is rising but many don’t know that its salinity is also rising,” said Adhya.