Sundarbans: Terracotta rings offer hope against rising seas

DW (English)

The world’s largest mangrove forest is sinking due to climate change, threatening millions of lives and livelihoods. Could ancient terracotta provide help?

Transcript

00:00Life for people in the Sundarbans is on a knife edge.

00:04Their future hangs in the balance.

00:07This vast mangrove delta, the largest on earth, is home to more than 4.5 million people,

00:14including small farmers like Madhusudhan Barkandaj.

00:18His two-acre paddy field is his family's only source of income.

00:22But rising tides, sinking land and increasingly violent cyclones are swallowing riverbanks

00:28and with them, the fragile livelihoods of many like him.

00:36When Cyclone Isla struck in 2009, we suffered huge losses.

00:40Most families lost 200,000 to 300,000 rupees.

00:44There was a foul odor of rotting fish, farm animals, birds, dogs, cows, etc.

00:50Everyone fell ill with diarrhea.

00:53The earthen embankment near the river collapsed and many people died.

00:57We took the whole family to Chennai, Kerala and Tamil Nadu for migrant work.

01:03After 10 years, we returned and rebuilt our home.

01:06Everything had been washed away.

01:08We had nothing.

01:14Protecting families like Madhusudhan's has never been easy.

01:18The region has seen embankments built and rebuilt.

01:21Concrete defences have proven costly and they are often not effective.

01:28Now, ecologists are drawing on knowledge from the past.

01:32Adapting ancient well technology, they are using terracotta rings to trap silt and help shorelines grow.

01:39One of the reasons for the structure that we have created here is to try and see if we can halt or reduce the rate of erosion.

01:52What we have done here is we have created modules made out of bamboo and silt traps.

01:58Each module is three rings in length, so it's about six feet because each of them are about two feet.

02:04This is a cheaper intervention than a concrete or armoured embankment.

02:12This is like a natural embankment for the forest land behind.

02:17These rings are made by local artisans like Shantanu Paal.

02:24As demand grows, the need for the terracotta rings is also giving potters a reason to keep their centuries-old craft alive.

02:35We have to mix three ingredients, sand, silt and clay.

02:39They have to be mixed correctly, otherwise it will be wasted.

02:43For the mangrove project, I also fire the terracotta for longer.

02:49Otherwise, there is a chance it will be damaged by the currents.

02:52I feel proud that this product is being used for such an important purpose.

02:57If the mangroves are saved, our nature will be saved too.

03:03With their simple and biodegradable design, the rings are cheaper and have a small carbon footprint than concrete.

03:10Producing cement, the main ingredient in concrete involves heating limestone, which releases carbon dioxide.

03:18So concrete is a major CO2 emitter.

03:21By contrast, terracotta's main impact comes from the type and amount of fuel used in kilns, which can be reduced with more efficient firing.

03:29Terracotta rings are, you know, made of earth.

03:35Even if they break over a period of time, they'll become part of the ecosystem.

03:39This particular installation is nearly six months old now.

03:41And the way it has held, the way silt is accumulating, now I also see it being used by other organisms as part of their habitat.

03:48Given that this is like a perforated structure, our assumption is it will hold fine.

03:56Also, for the reason that during cyclones, the water levels go up.

04:00And if this goes underwater, then there is no threat to this structure.

04:06Terracotta rings are no magic fix, according to researcher Tuhin Ghosh.

04:10But he says they have begun to show promise, especially in places where the rivers carry enough silt and the local conditions are favourable.

04:21But in a delta that's sinking fast, Ghosh warns that solutions for climate-based problems can't be one-size-fits-all.

04:29He says they have to be grounded in precise, local-specific data.

04:34If you see about the rate of sea level rise in this region, that is varying from 2 to 12 millimetres.

04:43For 2 millimetres sea level rise, your policy decision will be different from the 12 millimetres sea level rise.

04:49And the inundation level will be different.

04:51So you need to come up with some kind of calibration involving people who are working on this area.

04:56And then you go for the policy decision.

04:58But the research, the lot of research is going on.

05:00Systematic research is not going on.

05:02There is scope of a lot of experimentation with Terracotta.

05:06But we need some fund, we need some changed mindset, and we need some kind of innovative approach.

05:13That is the most essential thing for the solution.

05:17But for Madhusudhan Barkandaj and millions of others in the delta, every patch of land saved makes survival a little easier.

05:28River erosion is our only major problem.

05:31If this erosion stops, we won't have to face such problems again.

05:35We feel good here.

05:37We love living in our homeland.

05:40But securing the future of this fragile delta will take more than local fixes.

05:45It requires urgent, science-driven policies that match the resilience of the people who call this land home.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended