Climate change: In B'desh as river Chitra turns saline, mangroves appear

In parts of Bangladesh, especially along the Chitra river, mangrove forests are appearing as the river water turns saline

Environmentalists have consistently warned that climate change would adversely affect the world’s largest mangrove forest and World Heritage Site, the Sundarbans, with the reduction in flow of fresh water, and increase in salinity.

In reality, salinisation of the freshwater river Chitra – adjacent to the Sundarbans – started a couple of decades ago. Now, new mangrove forests are springing up, replacing other vegetation and spelling the end of an ecosystem that was heavy with sweet water vegetation and fish.

The newly emerged mangrove forest stretches across three and half kilometres, in the villages of Goalbari, Putia