South 24 Parganas Sundarbans Mud Crab Prawn Fishing

South 24 Parganas district encompasses the Indian Sundarbans — the world's largest mangrove delta where over 4 million people in 54 inhabited islands depend on tiger prawn (bagda) aquaculture, mud crab (kankda) harvesting, hilsa fishing, and NTFP collection from the mangrove forest for their livelihoods. Sundarbans fishers who enter the reserve forest for fishing and honey collection face the Bengal tiger — a terrestrial and semi-aquatic apex predator that takes 50-100 human lives annually in the Sundarbans, the highest human-wildlife conflict in India. The district's Gosaba, Sandeshkhali, and Patharpratima blocks are among West Bengal's most vulnerable to sea-level rise and cyclone intensification, with 2009's Cyclone Aila and 2020's Cyclone Amphan destroying entire delta islands' embankments and making tens of thousands homeless.