Conservation of biodiversity of the coastal resources of Sundarbans, Northeast India: an integrated approach through environmental education.

The Indian Sundarbans, a diversified coastal wetland on the southern fringe of the State of West Bengal, harbors a luxuriant biodiversity and acts as a potential refuge of living marine resources. Girdled with thick mangrove foliage, this estuarine delta system offers an excellent nursery ground for most of the brackishwater finfish and shellfish. Since supply of hatchery-produced tiger prawn seed (Penaeus monodon) is highly inadequate in West Bengal, the aquaculture farms of this region largely depend on the supply from natural resources. Being motivated by a regular cash income, the majority of coastal people from Sundarbans have adopted prawn seed collection as their profession almost throughout the year as an important source of earning. The users are neither trained nor guided at any stage from collection to marketing and are fully dependent on traditional methods. They first sort out the tiger prawn seeds (mainly the postlarval stage PL 20) accounting only 0.25-0.27% of the total catch and thereafter the major portion of the haul are thrown away on the beach flats or the tidal mudflats. This wasted by-catch contains the juveniles of economic and uneconomic varieties of finfish and shellfish along with a bulk of holoplankters and meroplankters (non-target species). This practice causes several ecological and occupational consequences, namely, (i) the huge destruction of the pelagic biota that can lead to severe stock depletion as well as hamper the energy transference through the marine ecosystem food webs; (ii) constant dragging of nets along the coast and tidal creeks paves the way for soil erosion, uprooting the mangrove seedlings and saltmarsh vegetation; (iii) the water quality is deteriorating in the catchment areas due to mud erosion and (iv) due to constant contact with the seawater, the collectors are affected with waterborne diseases, skin infections, reproductive tract disease in women and many other contagious diseases. This paper, in addition to identifying the challenge to environmental quality and resource abundance, emphasizes the need for grass-root public education so that local people come to understand, support and implement sustainable resource conservation and environmental protection activities now and in the future. As a follow-up course of action, the authors have initiated a general awareness program for developing consciousness among the coastal people regarding proper use of natural resources. Initiatives are taken for educating coastal people by holding workshops and seminars with the use of educational resource materials. Exclusive awareness camps and grass root level training for coastal people are also being proposed as a future course of action by means of exhibitions, audiovisuals etc. It is proposed that local government bodies come forward to mitigate this problem with scientific and rational approaches and to take proper actions towards conservation.