Mangrove Forests Moving Upstream On Bangladesh's Chitra River As Ocean Rises

Environmentalists have consistently warned that climate change would adversely affect the world’s largest mangrove forest and World Heritage Site, the Sundarbans, with the reduction in flow of fresh water, and increase in salinity.

In reality, salinisation of the freshwater river Chitra – adjacent to the Sundarbans – started a couple of decades ago. Now, new mangrove forests are springing up, replacing other vegetation and spelling the end of an ecosystem that was heavy with sweet water vegetation and fish. The newly emerged mangrove forest stretches across three and half kilometres, in the villages of Goalbari, Putia and Gurguria in Begerhat district.

“The Chitra has always been a freshwater river [but] since our youth, we have seen Sundari, Keora, Golpata, Ura and other trees spreading along two sides of the river,” Tauhidul Islam, a former chairman of Mulghor, told thethirdpole.net, adding that the trees grow in the saline waters of the Sundarbans.

“You will not see non-saline species in the area,” said slam, a fish trader. The increased salinity has pushed mango, coconut, and other species out from Mulghor. “The coconut trees have been getting thinner day by day and dying.”

EDIT

https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/11/22/as-the-chitra-turns-saline-mangroves-appear/