The Bengal Chamber of commerce & Industry in association with Ballygunge Society for Environment & Development organized webinar on Resilience, Vulnerability and Restoring Sundarbans Ecosystem on 24th July 2021 through online platform. The objective of the webinar was to address issues on dynamic interplay between disturbance and resilience in Sunadarban area. Small mangrove areas in the Indian Sundarbans are currently under significant threat, according to the webinar speakers. An increase in anthropogenic interferences such as urbanisation, pisciculture, agriculture, salt farming, tourism, mining, refineries, dams, and road construction; changes in hydrological regimes; coastal pollution; siltation; fishery resource exploitation; cattle grazing; and unrelenting deforestation are all contributing to this rapid degradation. The ability of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while changing while maintaining the same controls on function and structure is referred to as ecological resilience or ecosystem resilience. As resilience declines, the synergistic effects of negative pressures can make ecosystems more vulnerable to changes with sudden shift from desired to less desired states.

The webinar was graced by:

• Mr. Saurabh Chaudhuri, IFS, Addl. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest & Member Secretary, West Bengal Zoo Authority
• Dr.Sourabh Kumar Dubey, Consultant, World Fish
• Dr.Silanjan Bhattacharya, Professor, West Bengal State University