Reasons why you need to have Sundarbans National Park in your travel bucket list

Sundarbans National Park is a wildlife park, a tiger reserve and a biosphere reserve, all three in one. It is the fourth part of the Sundarbans delta, formed as a result of the confluence of rivers Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna in the Bay of Bengal. There are four protected areas of the Sundarbans, with three of them located in Bangladesh, and one in India (Sundarbans National Park).

Read more: Sundarbans, the land of infinite natural wonders and Royal Bengal tigers

Sundarbans National Park is the most popular of all four and rightly so. It is a destination with features so unique that the national park finds itself among the prestigious list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

We bring you some very good and strong reasons why this national park needs to be on your travel wishlist.

The Sundarbans National Park is a part of the largest halophytic mangrove forests in the world – the Sundarbans. Its identification and conservation as an important mangrove forest began in 1875, when it was first declared a reserve forest. Sundarbans gets its name from the sundari tree, a special kind of mangrove. In India alone, the mangrove forest occupies an area of 1330 sq km.

The Indian side of the Sundarbans is also a big part of the world’s largest estuarine forest. These types of forest have a very distinct feature – an extensive network of tidal waterways, made up of hundreds of creeks and river tributaries. This interconnected waterways is also why it is so easy to navigate around Sundarban mangrove forest on boats. It makes for a great adventure.

In 1987, Sundarbans National Park was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its exceptional biodiversity in both marine and terrestrial environments. It is one of the last remaining mangroves in the world and they play a very important role in protecting not only the wildlife but also the areas that are nearby, from devastating cyclones and floods.

Sundarbans National Park has a very wide range of fauna. The forest supports around 260 bird species, a healthy population of estuarine crocodile, the threatened Indian python, and the Bengal tiger. There are around 100 Bengal tigers in Sundarbans. The tigers of Sundarbans are very comfortable in the water and are well adapted to the saline waters of the Sundarbans. Sundarbans National Park is also an important place of conservation of the critically endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles.

Sundarbans National Park is approximately 109 km from Kolkata, making it a great destination for a day trip. Once you have covered most places and attractions in Kolkata, you need to take out some time for this. There aren’t too many destinations around Kolkata that are perfect for these kinds of short trips, but Sundarbans is. You will find plenty of places to stay for a night or two, depending on your travel plans. Sundarbans National Park is accessible only by boats, but you can easily drive till the ferry terminals.