Unexplored potential

Can tourism help communities in the Sundarbans cope with climate-induced loss and damage?

- JAYANTA BASU

SPEAKING AT a national level meeting held at the Sundarbans on December 21, 2025, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav criticised the West Bengal government for not being able to exploit the tourism potential of the biodiverse mangrove forest.

“Sundarbans should expand its tourism. On an average 9 to 9.5 lakh tourists visit the Sundarbans every year while the figure is almost 19 lakh in Ranthambore,” said Yadav. The statement led to a series of refusals and counterarguments from politicians, academics and experts on tourism as a source of livelihood in the ecologically sensitive forests.

Spread over 19,000 sq km in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, the Sundarbans is the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—and a Royal Bengal tiger habitat. The region faces frequent cyclones, floods and tidal surges. Its low-lying geography makes the Sundarbans extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, whose frequency is increasing with climate change. The region is also densely populated, supporting nearly 13 million people in the two countries. The Indian Sundarbans span about 4,000 sq km, primarily in the South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal, and are home to over 4.5 million people, many reliant on agriculture, fishing and forestry.