Sundarbans and its Ecosystem Services

Book excerpt: This edited volume focuses on the largest single tract contiguous mangrove forest in the world— the Sundarbans— exploring traditional knowledge, customary sustainable use and community-based innovation. The book analyses the current state of the Sundarbans, its multiple values and ecosystem services, to demonstrate that Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) is essential for the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Not only does this play an integral role in realising SDG 14 (life below water) and SDG 15 (life on land), it also actively contributes towards achieving many other goals and targets. It contributes a new understanding of sustainability by bringing human-nature relationships in view of the renewed interest in biodiversity and climate change— heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The book links scientific knowledge with multi, inter, trans- disciplinary nature of ILK for sustainable development collected from the ground. It challenges the market-based approach in valuing the natural resources, and demonstrates that the valuation of environmental resources through market penetration pricing does not reckon the social benefits and values coproduced through complementarity between humans and nature.