Four months after Cyclone Aila ravaged these islands, the importance of mangroves seems to have dawned on locals in the Sunderbans, where adults and children alike have taken to planting seeds without waiting for the state government’s initiative.

It’s now an established fact that the areas with thick mangrove cover were less affected by Aila.

For 30-year-old Kaushala Barman, a widow who lives with her two daughters in a small village of Sonagaon, life turned upside down when Aila struck with devastating ferocity.

She is now busy collecting varieties of mangrove seeds and learning how to plant them.

Her daughters — Kumkum (17) and Tanima (14) — who study in a local school run by an NGO, are ready to lend a helping hand. And the growing interest in mangrove forests is not confined to adults. Sangeeta Das is just 7 but is big enough to help her family collect seeds of mangrove because she too “wants to save my Sunderbans”.

Sujit Sardar (40) recalls how his house was partially saved because of the full-grown mangrove trees. Today, he finds time each day to plant seeds in his village of Dulki.

Experts say embankments with mangroves were more intact compared to ones with no mangroves.

“Mangroves protect vulnerable embankments from tidal surges. Besides being a breeding nursery of shell and finfish, molluscs, crustaceans, it also acts as a bio-shield against storms and cyclones. Government agencies and NGOs have been planting mangroves, but they were destroyed during prawn seed collection or eaten by goats. Post-Aila, we have seen that villagers themselves, without remuneration, are collecting and planting such seeds,” said Ajanta Dey of Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS), an NGO working to plant mangroves.

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