An ‘army’ of women, many of whom have lost their husbands in tiger attacks, are now fighting to save the Sundarbans in West Bengal, the world’s largest mangrove delta and home to more than 100 tigers.
Many of these women lost their husbands in tiger attacks. We have been working silently all these years, away from the focus of mainstream media. “In return, we don’t get any money. Instead, we receive everyday items needed to run the family — rice, dal, cooking oil and spices. Sometimes, we also get sarees, sanitary napkins, seeds to grow vegetables, fish fingerlings for our ponds and chickens for poultry. “In the Sundarbans of West Bengal, some women are setting an inspiring example of the special bond [that humans share] with nature. These women are growing and restoring mangrove forests. After losing their husbands, they got support for their livelihood from the Sundarbans. The mangroves they had planted have now become a natural shield for the villages. The moderately dense mangrove cover remained unchanged during the period. Tiger attacks, meanwhile, continue to pose a risk to people who enter the forest to earn a living. Some deaths may go unreported when villagers enter the forest without permission. “The Prime Minister himself flagged our work.
The group that is now called the ‘Mangrove Army’ was formed in 2009, after cyclone Aila devastated the Sundarbans, by Umashankar Mondal, a government schoolteacher in West Bengal. He brought together around 200 village women to plant mangrove saplings along riverbanks. Over the years, the initiative has grown to include around 600 women, of whom approximately 120 have lost their husbands in tiger attacks. “Since 2009, we have planted more than 1.3 million mangrove saplings along the riverbanks of 12 remote islands, including Satjelia, Kumirmari and Choto Mollakhali. It was only in July 2023 that we officially named the women’s group the ‘Mangrove Army’. The total mangrove cover in the Sundarbans, including very dense, moderately dense and open mangroves, increased from 2,112 sq km in 2019 to 2,114 sq km in 2021, according to the FSI’s 2021 report. At least 15 people were killed in tiger attacks in 2018, while no deaths were recorded in 2023 and one was reported in 2024.
It was recently highlighted by the Prime Minister,” said Mondal, secretary of the Purbasha Eco-helpline Society, the non-profit organisation behind the initiative. Recently, the society organised free eye-testing camps, and those who needed spectacles were provided with them,” Anita said. They are also earning by planting these mangroves,” Modi said. Senior officials said such fatalities have declined over the years. It came as a huge achievement for us who work on the remote islands trying to save the Sundarbans and their villages,” she said.
The women plant mangrove saplings along riverbanks to protect their villages from cyclones and help conserve the fragile ecosystem.
Known as the “Mangrove Army”, the group was recently praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann Ki Baat address aired on September 27.
