You’re considering a journey to Sundarban, one of the world’s most pristine wildernesses and certainly a highlight of the subcontinent. Who do you turn to for more information?
In the course of our research we’ve managed to try out a few operators—but perhaps you know others. Feel free to let us know via your comments if you’ve tried out any other companies, or who to avoid. Here’s our review:
A number of people have e-mailed us noting the recent news that a Lonely Planet author admitted to not even travelling to some of the destinations he wrote about, to which Lonely Planet has already written a factually-based retort on its website.
The offending author, Thomas Kohnstamm, claims that he didn’t get paid enough, and actually, it is true that very few people in the industry make enough to make a living. Considering he’s just published a book called “Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?” it makes sense for him to pull a kind of publicity stunt in order to drive sales of that book, considering that under Lonely Planet’s system, he won’t be collecting royalties on those book sales.
For our end of things at the Joybangla.Info, we can tell you that fact-checking and reviewing places is a utterly painstaking process. We are also accountable to you, our readers, because we will get paid when you purchase our book via royalties. My name will be attached to the work and, right on its cover. Therefore, I want it to be top notch. It’s not worth doing it otherwise!!
Tigers are in the news again, but finally we’re hearing from the conservationist side of the story. As Adam Barlow writes:
I hope, for the sake of the tigers, that there will be no further unbalanced attacks the media that are at best divisive and at worse damage tiger conservation. It is much easier to criticize other people’s efforts to save the tiger than to create solutions or come to work in the forest to help save tigers.
While we debate tiger darting in the newspapers for example, more cows and dogs have been killed in Chandpai where we were trying to collar a problem tiger. The same tiger has killed over 60 domestic animals and one person. Livestock depredation by tigers is common in the eastern Sundarbans and man-eating is rampant in the West. Surely these kinds of issues deserve more attention in the newspapers.
As recorded by the BBC news regarding Sirajul’s article “According to Raghu Chundawat, a Delhi-based wildlife scientist who is not connected to the project, any long-term suspension of the radio-collar programme would be a “disaster” for the Sundarbans, and doubts about the safety of the drugs are “absolute nonsense”.” What does it achieve to attack people’s efforts to conserve tigers in the press? I think that the Forest Department’s efforts to save the Sundarbans tigers should be highly commended. The tigers’ only hope is that people can work together in a constructive way and I ask the Bangladesh people to unite behind tiger conservation before it is too late.
The issue mainly stems over whether the project is doing good by learning the habits of the majestic animal, or contributing to its demise. Its opponents argue that the drug used in the tranquilizing damages the tiger’s central nervous system. Hossain writes:
Sundarban is a unique place and also the only great ecosystem in the world where Bengal tigers live in saline water system. Life of a wild tiger is extremely challenging and very much depends on the physical and psychological integrity of the animal. For zoo or captive tigers physical wellbeing is enough for her survival. But for a wild animal her physical and psychological performance together only can ensure her survival. There has not been any pharmacological research to find how the above chemicals will affect specially the Sundarban tiger that drinks salt water and eat the intestine of the kill full of mangrove vegetation. Before this research is done and proven safe, there should be no other application of those drugs on healthy tigers in the wild.
However, researchers on the project argue that there is no evidence that the drug causes said damage, and that radio-collaring is an absolutely necessary tool in discovering the habits of the tiger, so that managers can make proper decisions as to its conservation. Adam Barlow writes:
The media has great potential to help in raising awareness about tiger conservation and to garner public support for this precious animal. Conversely, it also has the power to damage tiger conservation by negative and subjective reporting that confuses issues and seemingly deliberately tries to hamper people’s heartfelt and well-thought out efforts to protect the tiger. Surely the job of the newspaper is to provide objective reports on stories so that the Bangladeshi people can use the balanced information to make informed views on a subject.
It is our opinion that collaring is necessary and needed for the proper management of the Sundarbans and its wildlife, especially for the Royal Bengal Tiger, who is the chosen mascot of Bangladesh. Without solid research to back up forest management policies, the tigers stand at great risk to human interference. Given the lack of proper management that the forest department has had in episodes previous, we feel that appropriate, international standard scientific research will help conserve one of the last remaining wild places Bangladesh has.
Here’s a video showing the process of capturing the tiger:
Originally published in the New Age, Feb. 13, 2008. More photos available here.
For a country that blossoms with national pride, the majority of Bangladeshis fail to respect the country’s natural wonders.
St Martin’s Island, where once thousands of migratory birds sought refuge, turtles laid eggs and coral grew, now bustles with migratory tourists and growing piles of plastic. Economic development drives tourism, but what tourists and hotel owners fail to acknowledge is their impact. The gold rush of tourism to St Martin’s Island will be short-lived unless changes are made immediately.
Only a few years ago, the island was an ecological refuge. ‘It was the best place for turtle nesting and even schoolchildren protected the nests,’ recalls Elisabeth Mansur, Chief Executive Officer of Guide Tours. ‘The biodiversity was truly amazing.’
Tourists were still able to visit, but it was a form of adventure tourism. The rocky journey – via a country boat crammed with the islands supplies – limited the number of tourists, as did the one beach hut. But the tourists that came were rewarded by natural beauty, an experience that didn’t resemble a Thai beach Mecca. Now, four large vessels ply the crossing daily during high season. Most tourists stay anywhere from three hours to a little over 24. It’s not hard to imagine why the island is disappearing in a state of disrepair.
Mansur says eco-tourism was discussed at length before the hotel explosion in 2005. There was a plan to maintain St Martin’s biodiversity.
‘Private industry sat for many months making a good development plan of how soft-ecotourism and responsible travel could develop,’ says Mansur. ‘But that’s when the government went ahead and opened the land rights for people from the mainland.’
People with sensitive stomachs need not be worried while travelling India’s most well-touristed trail, says Mikey Leung
It was in a Pizza Hut, well within viewing distance of the Taj Mahal’s towers, that I finally caved in. A Britney song droned overhead, cheapening the far-too-familiar atmosphere. Tonight we would dine on Pasta Arabiata, a cuisine fit only for the modern Mughal aristocrat—i.e. the India tourist. Across the table sat my upbeat father, for we had just seen the Taj Mahal a few hours earlier. Despite that wonderful moment when I first gazed upon the Taj’s towers, I finally gave up on being an explorer in India—the way I am in Bangladesh each and every day.
Bangladesh will become a traveler’s destination, but not the way you imagine, argues Mikey Leung.
This article originally published in the Daily Star’s Forum Magazine at this weblink.
The number of reasons that travelers avoid Bangladesh cannot even be counted on two hands.
On foreign television screens, riots and floods are the leading actors; their supporting cast is no less extraordinary. Pseudo-Islamic extremism garners a major role, while abject poverty plays like a forgettable soundtrack. Interminable corruption adds to the atmosphere of a Shakespearean tragedy: the characters always suffer inescapably under the weight of their own extraordinary gluttony.
For a country whose world reputation seems to be constantly drowning, it is hard to imagine that Bangladesh will one day become a traveler’s destination on par with its neighbours. How is this possible? In five years, the Bangladesh travel industry will be totally unrecognisable compared to the industry of today.
Tourism in Bangladesh is inevitable
Consider the Chinese tourism experience, a path this nation already treads. Little more than 10 years ago, Chinese domestic tourism was infantile, in the same way that Bangladeshi tourism is now embryonic. Powered by an upwardly mobile middle class, the industry evolved new tourism products while promoting existing destinations. The market was literally captive: very few Chinese had the means to travel outside China. Even today, very few do.
Joybangla.info is the website for Bangladesh: The Bradt Travel Guide. We welcome you to follow our research progress (or lack thereof) at this blog. More..
You’re considering a journey to Sundarban, one of the world’s most pristine wildernesses and certainly a highlight of the subcontinent. Who do you turn to for more information?
Some 
Originally published in the 
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