In Koyra Upazila, southwestern Bangladesh, traditional healer Suranjan Raptan has been collecting medicinal plants from the Sundarbans mangrove forests for 21 years. His father and grandfather did the same, but the knowledge was passed down not in writing, but through practice and memory.
According to Suranjan, after Cyclone Aila in 2009, the forest density noticeably decreased. Around 2015-2016, he noticed that sunlight began reaching places that were once heavily shaded, and familiar medicinal plants became harder to find. The tree he is currently looking for eluded him last time, and he fears it may have disappeared.
Suranjan's yard used to be filled with hundreds of patients; now he treats only a handful. This is partly due to the expansion of community clinics: starting in 2009, Bangladesh revitalized its primary healthcare programme, and by 2015 about 14,000 clinics were operating. Additionally, numerous retail drug shops emerged, selling medicines often without a prescription. Younger villagers increasingly turn to clinics and doctors.
However, some rural residents, especially the elderly and poor, still rely on kabiraj. Deepa Mandol says the town doctor is expensive, the clinic is far, and Suranjan never charges. Her husband has hepatitis B, but local herbs cannot eliminate the virus.
The Sundarbans stretches across 10,000 square kilometres in Bangladesh and India. It shelters the Royal Bengal tiger, saltwater crocodiles, and over 300 plant species. Nearly 2.7 million people live in the coastal districts on the Bangladesh side alone. However, rising seas and repeated cyclones are pushing saltwater further into coastal ecosystems. Between 2017 and 2021, salinity in tidal water rose from 21 to 33 parts per thousand, while soil salinity increased by 31 percent.
Professor Md Abdur Rahim notes that salt is slowly rewriting the forest. Hardy trees may survive, but the medicinal plants kabiraj rely on are disappearing. Suranjan's uncle, honey collector Chapal Raptan, says that this year not a single bain tree has bloomed, so there is no bain honey at all. For men who have spent their lives entering the forest, this is an unfamiliar change in a landscape they thought they knew.
Provat Sarder, 65, a kabiraj for 35 years, says he is the last one, as no one wants to study hard anymore. His grandfather Basanta began teaching him as a teenager after treating a neighbour for a snakebite. Experts stress that snakebite is a medical emergency and patients should be taken urgently to a hospital, not rely on traditional treatment.
Kabiraj try to harvest plants carefully, but this cannot protect them from changes in the water itself. Suranjan says that before, during the tide, the forest did not sink completely; higher ground stayed dry. Now the forest goes fully underwater, and because of the saltwater many trees are dying. He names species that have become difficult to find: hogla and bain.
Source: www.aljazeera.com