On Monday 28 October, Kingston and Surbiton's Green Party candidate, Dr Debojyoti Das, along with members of the SOAS from the University of London, presented the Save the Mangrove Project, to Green Party member Jenny Jones at the House of Lords.

The South Bengal littoral is prone to regular cyclone and, of late, possibly because of global warming, there has been several mega cyclones striking the delta creating a huge loss to human life and distraction of millions of mangrove plant species.

This leads to soil erosion, embankment breaches and floods as mangrove protect coastal environments from sea surges and cyclonic winds.

This has direct impact on the marginalised seaside communities who have historically faced oppression and violence perpetuated by colonial land reclamation programmes in the Bengal Delta and postcolonial agroecological development programmes both in the Indian and Bangladeshi side of the Sundarbans Delta.

Thus, activists, including Dr Das, have launched the Save The Mangrove Project.

The aims of the project include:

·       Replanting of the mangrove trees on the banks of the rivers in South Bengal (North and South 24 Parganas of West Bengal).

·       Protecting them until they become strong enough not to be destroyed by grazing animals.

This will help the area:

·       Regain its past environment.

·       Prevent soil erosion.

·       Act as a natural barrier in some places against wild animals.

At the launch in Parliament, there was a series of presentations given by attendees, including an introduction by Baroness Jenny Jones, a talk by Dr Das introducing the project and history of the region, colonial violence, projects relevance in light of Climate Justice, and a talk by Sew Willman from Kings College London on activism and building resilience in the Delta.

Moreover, Amrita Dasgupta from SOAS spoke about Mangrove's and social life in Sundarbans, Sanjukta Ghosh from SOAS, gave a presentation on the wider Issues and connections with biodiversity conservation and nature-based solution, and Anirban Mukhopadhyay, a project partner and collaborator in UK and South Asia, ended the event.

In his presentation, Dr Das highlighted that the mangroves are the most "threatened and endangered species in the global south".

He explained that he brought the project to Parliament due to Britain's history of colonialism in Bengal.

He said that "the British were responsible for the collapse of Mangroves in the Sundarban Delta in the first place".

"The world has lost over 6,000 square km of mangrove forests since 1996," the Kingston and Surbiton Green Party candidate said.

Speaking about the launch, Baroness Jenny Jones of the Green Party at the Lords told Kingston Nub News: "Today was really interesting because I as a green am very, very concerned about nature restoration and making sure that the impacts of climate change are not going to be as severe as it could be.

"Mangrove restoration is obviously one way of making that happen and of course we have to remember that this sort of thing only works if you take people along with you.

"So, you have to have communities, and it was interesting today to hear that that the community is actually losing their culture be because they're losing their usual work, and so I was very glad to host this."

Baroness Jenny Jones hosted the launch of the Save the Mangrove Project at Parliament (Image supplied)

The launch of the Mangrove Restoration project at the House of Lords was a sequel to the Thames Durga Parade.

The session was enriched by the presence of the first British Asian graphic artist Kamal Koria who was felicitated for his intricate artwork on rural lives that was presided over by the Baroness.

Dr Das said: "The plans for bringing more Indian rituals for 2025 were announced by Anirban Mukhopadhyay, the Director of HBG, while concluding with the Greatest Show on Earth awards given out to very committed three Durga Pujo organisations in Peterborough, Milton Keynes and East London for their exceptional creativity, and one of them endorsed by the Arts Council UK."

The launch concluded with the Greatest Show on Earth awards (Image supplied)

Access to drinking water is one of the biggest problems in India, hence why it is important to bring Save the Mangrove Project to Parliament, especially as the Thames is facing problems with drinking water.

At the Thames Durga Parade, the Kolkata rowing club and London rowing club came together to promote better access to drinking water.

Kingston cllr Kamala Krugan also attended the launch at Parliament.

Kingston cllr Kamala Krugan also attended the launch at Parliament (Image supplied)