Climate pressures leading to rise in Sunderbans 'tiger widows'

Syful Islam Reuters AlertNet 26 Jul 10;

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) - Climate change is driving a growing number of farmers in Bangladesh's southern Sunderbans region out of their fields and into the region's mangrove forests, leading to a rise in tiger attacks and 'tiger widows,' researchers say.

Finding no other jobs to earn livelihoods, people of the region are increasingly turning to the forests to catch fish and crabs or collect wood and honey for sale.

But that has left them vulnerable to attacks by the dwindling number of Royal Bengal tigers that roam the Sunderbans, experts say.

Aleya Begum, 18, of Munshiganj Kolabari village in Bangladesh's Satkhira district, lost her husband Abdur Rouf to a tiger attack when he was fishing near the Sundarbans. Now she lives with her mother, and both are struggling to survive on wages earned as day labourers.

Begum's 5-year-old son has been sent to live with his grandfather, following tradition that children of a marriage belong with the husband's family.

In a society where widows often have low social status and little chance to remarry, the tiger attacks are creating new suffering in a region already struggling with widespread loss of farmland to sea level rise and salt intrusion that has made it impossible for many farmers to continue growing crops.

"The tiger widows in that area are being treated as 'unwanted'. They are unwelcome at their in-laws' house and forced to return to their father's family," said Anwarul Islam, a geologist at the University of Dhaka and chief executive officer of the Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh (WTB).

Tiger-people interactions are age-old in the region, but are now on the rise as farmers who can no longer earn a living from their land venture in growing numbers into the Sunderbans mangrove forests in search of an alternative income.

Some farmers have been able to begin raising shrimp on their fields, hard-hit by sea water intrusion into underground aquifers and salt water driven into even inland fields during cyclone surges.

But shrimp cultivation requires only a small number of workers, leaving many people in the area with no way to earn a living.

"So people go to the Sundarbans and become easy prey of tigers. A tiger or tigress needs to run 10 to 15 minutes at least to catch a deer. But it doesn't need to run to catch a (man)," Islam said.

So far this year, 26 people have been killed by tigers in the region, compared to 34 in all of 2009 and 30 in all of 2008, WTB figures show. Nine people in the area have been injured in tiger attacks so far this year, compared to eight in all of 2009, the group said.

Islam said a recent survey by the wildlife trust found that 80 percent of 400 people questioned had eaten deer meat at least once in their life. That suggests hunting in the mangroves may also be reducing the tigers' access to their normal prey.

A MILLION DEPENDENT ON FOREST

Islam said that about a million people in the area are in one way or another dependent on the Sundarbans mangrove forests.

"I recently talked with many of them who are risking their lives. (But) they said they won't go to the forest if they get alternative ways to earn a living," he said.

Nowshad Gazi, 65, and his son Ismail Hosen, 13, of South Kodomtola village, in Shyamnagar sub-district, were killed in a tiger attack on July 6 while fishing in a canal near the Sundarbans.

A Royal Bengal tiger first attacked the son and dragged him into the forest. When the father entered the forest to rescue his son, the tiger then attacked and killed both of them.

Nowab Ali, 23, another of tiger victim Nowshad Gazi's sons, told AlertNet he is now the only earner supporting a seven-member family.

A crab trader, he said even his business was now suffering because the recent increase in tiger attacks means fewer people are willing to risk their lives fishing in the Sunderbans, at least for a few weeks.

Inevitably, however, they will return, he said.

"People go to the forest to find bread and butter as there is no other job in this area. Only God is with us to feed us, to save us," he said.

Salma Begum, 27, recently saw her husband, Majibur Rahman, seriously injured in a tiger attack after fishing from a canal in the Sunderbans forest.

Rahman had earlier tried his hand at cultivating shrimp on their salty farmland, but because of inexperience lost $700 when the shrimp died in a bacteria outbreak. He then found a job making bricks in a neighbouring town, but that job recently ended, forcing him to try fishing, his wife said.

Now the family is struggling to get by.

"Already Taka 40,000 ($600) has been spent for his treatment. We are eating hardly twice a day. Now I am working sometimes as a day labourer as my husband can't work," said Begum, the mother of three school-age children.

Not only people are being killed as a result of growing tiger-human interactions, Islam said. Tigers, unable to find food in the forest or looking for new territories, sometimes also wander into human settlements and are regularly killed, he said.

The size of the Sunderbans forest had fallen by half in 100 years, from its original 12,000 square kilometres, he said.

Modinul Ahsan, programme coordinator of the WTB, noted that conflict between tigers and people in the Sunderbans is centuries old. Quoting a survey carried out by researcher Adam Barlow in 2009, he said that from the year 1881 to 2006, an estimated 3,615 people had been killed by tigers in the area, or an average of 51 a year.

Syful Islam is a senior reporter with The New Nation newspaper in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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