DHAKA, 12 December 2007 (IRIN) - The world's largest mangrove forest - known as the Sundarbans - instrumental in saving thousands from certain death and destruction when Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh last month, may take up to 30 years to recover.

Had it not been for the 140,000-hectare Sundarbans taking the brunt of the storm, experts believe the loss of life and property would have been much higher.

"The Sundarbans is Bangladesh's guardian angel as far as storms and tidal waves are concerned," Chief Conservator of Forests AKM Shamsuddin said in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. "Had there been no Sundarbans, the cyclone would have caused more havoc in the southern districts."

The Sundarbans are also an important source of livelihoods, some of which are now at risk.

"Though alleviating human suffering caused by the cyclone is naturally the top priority for international support, the salvation of the Sundarbans is also of great importance as several hundred thousand people depend on the forest resources for their livelihood," said Marc Patry of UNESCO's (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Centre in Paris after visiting the area earlier this month.

"This is the message I tried to get across during my meeting with multilateral and bilateral donors," he added.

Over 3,500 people were killed and millions more were left homeless when the category four storm slammed into southwestern Bangladesh off the Bay of Bengal on 15 November. Packing winds in excess of 220kmph, the cyclone devastated much of the country's coastal belt, impacting more than 8.5 million people and leaving almost 1.5 million homes damaged or destroyed, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

World heritage site

Lying at the mouth of the Ganges river and spread across southwestern Bangladesh and West Bengal in India, the Sundarbans was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1997. About 6,000sqkm of the 10,000sqkm forest is in Bangladesh.

Teeming with fauna and wildlife, including 300 different types of bird, the Royal Bengal tiger, spotted deer, crocodiles, boars, fish, snakes, and monkeys, the area is one of the largest mangrove ecosystems of its kind.

A breeding ground for fish, shrimp, and crab, the area also provides livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of people living in the area: Char Dubla, a low-lying island at the extreme south of the forest, is the largest fishing and manual fish processing centre in Bangladesh today.

Additionally, much of the country's wood, grass, honey and 'goal pata' (leaves used to make thatched roofs) come from the forest.

Three million trees affected

According to UNESCO, some 40 percent of the site was seriously damaged by the cyclone, which struck at the heart of the East Sundarbans, the biologically richest part of the Bangladeshi World Heritage property - stripping foliage off over 30 percent of the trees and felling a large number.

Local media reports suggest that over three million trees in the area were affected, with preliminary losses estimated by the country's forest department at around US$150 million.

Additionally, it is feared that much of the wildlife in the area has suffered - with their natural habitats and sources of food badly damaged.

To date, the carcasses of at least one Bengal Tiger - already an endangered species - and over 80 spotted deer have been recovered.

Tourism income

At the same time, tour operators that once brought people to this natural habitat fear that environmental damage, coupled with the loss of local infrastructure, will keep away many of the 3,000 tourists a month that normally visit the area.

"I am quite sure the memory of this cyclone will haunt tourists travelling to the Sundarbans for some time," Hasan Mansur, president of the Tour Operators' Association of Bangladesh remarked.

"We can recover from infrastructural damage, but recovering the natural beauty of these areas could take time," Riti Ibrahim, the director of the Bangladesh Tourism Corporation added.

UNESCO believes that regeneration should normally take 10-15 years, while others say the time needed could be much longer.

Anwarul Islam, chairman of the Dhaka University zoology department, said the badly damaged portions of the Sundarbans could take up to 30 years to regenerate.

UNESCO is concerned that poaching and other intrusions could jeopardise this process and has called on donors to support the Bangladesh government re-build the capacity of the Forest Department to manage the site, by restoring and rebuilding infrastructure badly damaged by the storm - particularly boats and communications equipment.

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