As the annual COP-28 summit kicks off in Dubai, on a remote, cyclone-battered island in the Sundarbans, a schoolteacher has rallied climate crisis’s most vulnerable community mothers to secure a mangrove forest and, consequently, their lives.
‘Mangrove Man’ builds shield against cyclones in Sunderbans Umashankar Mandal, residents of the area admiringly say, has planted over 6.5 lakh saplings with help of 135 associates on the embankments of the rivers of two islands
Umashankar Mandal, 40, hails from a remote island in the Sunderbans and is a geography teacher at a Murshidabad high school.
Over the past decade, he earned the moniker of “Mangrove Man” for the12-year-long tree plantation drive he started in the area following the devastation caused by Cyclone Aila in 2009.
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Mandal, residents of the area admiringly say, has planted over 6.5 lakh saplings with help of 135 associates on the embankments of the rivers of two islands, Gosaba and Satjelia. Local residents say they have grown to consider the tree cover as a “shield” for their lives, that was proved true during Cyclone Amphan last year and Cyc