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Bapi Mondal and his wife Shanti in Bangalore. Climate change has forced the couple from their traditional livelihoods in the Sundarbans. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

By Diwash Gahatraj
BANGALORE & PAKHIRALAY, India, Oct 15 2025 (IPS)

Bapi Mondal’s morning routine in Bangalore is a world away from his ancestral village, Pakhiralay, in the Sundarbans, West Bengal. He wakes before dawn, navigates heavy traffic, and spends eight long hours molding plastic battery casings. It’s not the life his honey-gathering forefathers knew, but factors like extreme storms, rising seas, and deadly soil salinity forced the 40-year-old to abandon centuries of family tradition and travel miles away to work in a concrete suburban factory.

Bapi still remembers his traditional skills—walking through a mangrove forest to find a tree with a honeycomb, mending boats and fishing nets, and singing and acting in the traditional plays. His 19-year-old son, Subhodeep—working alongside in the factory—has lost the heritage.

Bapi’s home, the Sundarbans—the world’s largest mangrove forest—is on the frontlines of climate change, and local livelihoods are taking the hit. In this watery maze where land and sea meet, villagers who once relied on fishing, honey collection and farming are now grappling with rising tides, saltier water, and more frequent storms. For many, life is becoming a struggle to hold on to centuries-old ways.

Sea levels in the Sundarbans are rising nearly twice the global rate, flooding villages and forcing families out. Saltwater ruins rice fields and ponds, making farming and fishing harder. Mawalis, the honey gatherers, also struggle as climate change disrupts flowering and damages mangroves, reducing wild bee populations.

A fisherman in the Sundarbans. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

The crisis doesn’t end with the water. Salinity, once held at bay by freshwater flows, is climbing year after year, disrupting both fishing and farming. Pollution, ill-managed embankments, and overexploitation of resources add to the challenge. As incomes shrink and lands disappear, thousands leave for nearby cities, hoping for work but often finding only life in urban slums.

City life is unforgiving for migrants like Mondal. He spends eight grueling hours on his feet, molding battery casings six days a week in harsh factory conditions. At the end of each day, he returns to a small one-room apartment. He shares this space with his wife Shanti and son, Subhodeep. The family struggles financially. Bapi earns ₹19,000 per month (about USD 215)—barely enough to get by. Despite the hardships, he says the work is still his choice.

“A hard choice, but a choice,” he explains.

Morning rush is hectic for the Mondal family. He points to the wall clock and asks his wife to pack lunch quickly. “All three of us work in different factories in the area,” Mondal says. “We all have to reach work by 8 am.”

Gopal Mondal and his family in the Sundarbans. Gopal still ventures into the forests to collect wild honey. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

Shanti, Bapi’s wife, spends her days at a garment factory pressing clothes with a hot iron. She works eight-hour shifts with just one weekly break, earning ₹15,000 per month (about USD 169). Their 19-year-old son, Subhodeep, has also joined his father at the plastic factory. All three now work in Bommasandra, Bangalore’s industrial belt, pooling their wages to survive.

The migration has split their family apart.

“We have an 11-year-old daughter who lives with my in-laws in the Sundarbans,” Shanti explains. The cost of city life forced them to leave their youngest child behind. “It breaks my heart to be apart from my daughter, but we want her to have a good education and life—that’s why we sacrifice,” says Shanti. Her daughter attends school back in the village.

Her job gave her economic independence and a voice in family decisions, like building their new house. Bapi’s family, rooted in the village for centuries, were Mawalis, honey gatherers who knew the forest through knowledge passed down generations.

Still Rooted

Bapi’s father, Gopal Mondal, still ventures into the dangerous forests of Sunderbans. He risks tiger attacks and deadly cyclones to collect wild honey. But the forest that once fed families is now failing them.

Climate change has disrupted everything. Cyclones strike more often and with greater force. The natural flowering cycle has gone haywire. Fish populations in the waters have crashed.

“The honey harvest keeps shrinking and prices keep falling,” Gopal explains.

As Gopal tried to hold on to tradition, his son Bapi could no longer see a future in the same waters and forests.

“The forest no longer provides enough honey or fish,” Bapi shares. The rhythms his ancestors lived by for centuries suddenly made no sense. Faced with shrinking opportunities, Bapi tried other work back home. Besides going to the jungle for honey with his father during the season (April-May), he operated a van gaari—a battery-powered three-wheeler with a wooden platform for passengers. But even that barely paid enough to survive. “There was a time when I struggled to buy a saree for my wife,” he recalls. Migration was the only choice left.

A boat ferries passengers in Sundarbans. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

From Forests to Factories

Apart from forced migration, climate change erodes memory, identity, and ancestral knowledge. Leaving the Sundarbans has cost the family more than a homeland.

Bapi still carries traditional skills—navigating treacherous waters by boat and collecting honey deep in the forest.

“I know how to catch shrimp and crabs from the river and sea,” he says. “My father and uncles taught me these skills when I was young.”

His wife, Shanti, nods, adding that she was an expert crab and shrimp collector back in the Sundarbans. “I think I still have it in me,” she says with quiet pride.

But the chain of knowledge is breaking. “I could not pass on that wisdom to my son,” Bapi admits with regret.

Subhodeep represents this lost generation. He finished tenth grade and left his village to join his parents in Bangalore. He has not learned the skills that defined his family for generations. “I have never entered the forest to collect honey or fish back in the village,” Subhodeep explains. “My parents were against it.”

Bon bibi temple in Pakhiralay village. Along with losing traditional livelihoods, religion and cultural life are also in jeopardy. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

The irony is stark. Bapi’s parents encouraged him to learn these ancestral skills. But when environmental collapse made these traditions dangerous and unprofitable, Bapi chose to shield his son from them.

For the Mondals, the forest has become too dangerous and unreliable.

“Going to collect honey or catch fish is very unpredictable now,” Bapi explains. Catch volumes have fallen, and tiger attacks have grown. Bapi’s family knows the risk; his grandfather was killed while gathering honey in the forest.

Years earlier, a tiger also attacked Gopal Mondal. He was luckier—he escaped alive but still carries scars on his hand.

These brutal realities shaped Bapi’s decision about his son’s future. “I don’t want my next generation to have such a risky occupation,” he says. The choice is clear. Families can either cling to dangerous traditions that no longer pay enough to survive or abandon their ancestral practices for safer work in distant cities.

Are there other reasons behind the changes in the Sundarbans?

“We can’t just blame climate change and ignore human activities making things worse,” says Professor Tuhin Ghosh of Jadavpur University’s School of Oceanographic Studies. Human activity and climate change create a deadly combination.

People cleared mangroves for farms and fish ponds and built embankments that blocked tidal flows. The result is salt contamination, poisoned soil and water, vanishing species, and a broken landscape.

Uninhabitable Home

About 4.5 million people live across the Sundarbans region in Bangladesh and India. A recent survey reveals the massive scale of climate migration: nearly 59% of households have at least one family member who has moved away for work.

Some studies report 60,000 people migrated from parts of the Sundarbans by 2018. But household surveys show much higher rates because they measure affected families, not just individuals.

These local figures reflect a much bigger crisis. Across Bangladesh, weather-related disasters displaced 7.1 million people in 2022 alone, showing how climate change drives mass movement.

On the Indian side in West Bengal, researchers document large seasonal and permanent migration flows to cities and other states. Families routinely send members to work elsewhere, though official counts are scarce.

Loss Beyond Dollars

Over the past two decades, the Sundarbans has been hit by cyclones made stronger by climate change. They uprooted thousands and caused millions in losses. But beyond disaster relief and migration, a quieter crisis unfolds: the erosion of centuries-old ecological wisdom, culture, and tradition.

Gopal Mondal, in his early sixties, sits outside his modest home in Pakhiralay. When asked about protective equipment for his dangerous work collecting honey in the Sundarbans forest, he holds up a small amulet—a tabeej.

“This and my prayers to Bon Bibi are my protection,” says Mondal, who leads a team of honey collectors into the mangrove forests. “They shield us from storms and babu (tigers).”

The elderly collector recites mantras passed down through generations—teachings from his father or cousins, though he cannot recall exactly who taught him.

“The whole community worships Bon Bibi,” he explains simply

For Sundarbans communities like Mondal’s, Bon Bibi—the “Lady of the Forest”—is a guardian of the mangroves. For centuries, fishermen, honey collectors, and wood gatherers have sought her protection in tiger territory and cyclone-prone waters. Her worship is more than faith; it reflects the people’s bond with a dangerous yet life-sustaining environment, offering both comfort and identity where safety tools are scarce.

When asked about traditional knowledge slipping away from his family, Mondal’s weathered face shows a faint smile.

“Earlier, every fisherman’s family had someone —a son or grandson—who knew how to repair torn nets or mend boats,” he explains. “But in my family, things are slowly changing. My grandsons and sons live too far away, and their visits home are too short to learn these skills.”

The honey collector pauses, watching the distant mangroves. “The younger generation shows very little interest in our profession,” he adds quietly.

Climate migration expert M. Zakir Hossain Khan of Change Initiative, a Bangladesh-based think tank focused on solving critical global challenges, warns that climate-driven displacement from the Sundarbans is destroying centuries-old ways of life that depend entirely on deep knowledge of the forest and rivers.

Fishermen carry rare knowledge of tides, breeding cycles, and mangrove routes, passed down through years of practice. With youth leaving for city jobs, few inherit it. Honey gatherers know how to find hives, protect bees, and survive in tiger territory. As young people turn away, honey collection is fading from the Sundarbans.

A Vanishing Heritage

This generational shift reflects a broader transformation across the Sundarbans. Traditional skills that once defined coastal communities—net weaving, boat building, reading weather patterns, and forest navigation—are disappearing as young people migrate to cities primarily  for employment and a few for education.

“Similarly, mangrove-based handicrafts and boat-making using leaves, bamboo, and mangrove wood to make mats, roofing materials, and small boats demand both ecological understanding and artisanal skill, which are now rarely passed down,” comments Khan from Change Initiative.

He adds that herbal medicine and spiritual rituals practiced by local healers using plants like sundari bark and hental are also at risk, as migration and urbanization erode the cultural setting that sustains them.

Culture at Crossroads

Ghosh, who has spent over 30 years working in the Sundarbans, points to a troubling pattern.

“Migration is killing our folk arts,” he says. “Bonbibi stories, jatra pala theater, fishermen’s songs—they’re all disappearing. The people who used to perform during festivals are getting old. And there’s no one to replace them.”

The Sundarbans face a cultural crisis. Traditional performances that once brought villages together during religious festivals now struggle to find performers. Young people who might have learned these arts from their elders are instead leaving for cities for a better life

Once central to life in the Sundarbans, folk traditions like Jatra Pala, Bonbibi tales, and fishermen’s songs now fade with their aging performers. With few young apprentices, a rich cultural heritage risks disappearing—leaving behind a region not just economically changed, but culturally empty.

Note: This story was produced with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings for 2025 are taking place in Washington, D.C., October 13–18, at the World Bank Group and IMF headquarters. The meetings bring together the international community to discuss global economic challenges and opportunities, with a focus on creating jobs and driving sustainable growth, according to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank.
 
Meanwhile, with prices at record highs, the IMF should use its gold reserves to fund much-needed support for developing countries.

By Michael Galant and Ivana Vasic-Lalovic
WASHINGTON DC, Oct 15 2025 (IPS)

Countries across the Global South face an accelerating climate crisis, tepid growth, and unsustainable levels of debt. Yet hopes of finding support at the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Annual Meetings in Washington are dim. The IMF is tightening its purse strings — even as it leaves untouched a vast treasure of more than 3,000 tons of gold that offers a prime opportunity to stabilize the global economy.

While IMF lending yielded record income in FY2024, fears that Trump will cut off funding — combined with the organization’s exposure on an ill-advised,
US-directed mega-loan to Argentina — have prompted the Fund to reassess its assistance to those most in need.

At last year’s meetings, the IMF implemented a system of tiered interest rates on loans made through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) — a formerly interest-free lending facility for low-income countries.

The Fund also elected to maintain (if slightly modify) its controversial “surcharge” policy, which generates revenue for the IMF by charging onerous fees to highly indebted middle-income countries. Income from surcharges is now effectively being used to fund the PRGT, forcing these distressed countries to
subsidize the Fund’s concessional lending.

Yet while the IMF squeezes financing from the very countries it is meant to support, it is, in fact, sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of idle firepower.

When the Fund was founded in 1944, members were required to pay at least a quarter of their initial contribution in gold, which at the time was the foundation of the global monetary order. The gold standard is long gone, but the IMF still holds 90.5 million ounces — or over 3,000 tons — of the precious metal, historically held at the central banks of major shareholders.

Critically, this gold is still on the IMF’s books at a price determined in 1944: roughly $48 per ounce. This year, amid geopolitical uncertainty and increased demand from central banks, prices soared to all-time highs; for the first time ever, gold prices now exceed $4,000 per ounce.

In other words, the IMF’s gold reserves are worth over 85 times more than its accounting would suggest.

Selling just 1.5 percent of these holdings would cover the income generated from all surcharge payments through 2030. Selling 10 percent would cover the PRGT’s entire current lending envelope for a decade.

There’s precedent for such a move. In 1999, when gold was $282 per ounce, the IMF sold about 444 tons of gold directly to IMF members, who immediately returned it at the same price in fulfillment of outstanding debts.

The IMF was thus left with the same quantity of gold holdings, but with about $3 billion in profit to provide debt relief for low-income countries as a part of the celebrated Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.

In 2009, with gold prices still less than a third of today’s, the IMF board agreed to sell an eighth of its holdings outright, generating $15 billion in proceeds, a portion of which was transferred to the PRGT.

So, what’s stopping the IMF from doing the same today?

An agreement to sell gold reserves requires an 85 percent vote of the IMF board. As the proceeds from gold sales are, by default, distributed to IMF members in proportion to their quotas, a sale to bolster IMF lending power would require prior commitment from members to return their share of the windfall. But these political hurdles have been cleared before, in both 1999 and 2009.

While the US, which alone holds an effective veto over major IMF decisions, would have to agree to any arrangement, it’s difficult to see a cause for objection. Strengthening global economic stability — and therefore demand for US exports — at no new cost to the United States should hardly run afoul of an “America First” agenda.

Moreover, common concerns about the impacts of a sale on the gold market mean little in today’s context. With prices at record highs, the market can easily weather any price drops from an IMF sell-off, which can in any case be mitigated through the use of phased sales and off-market transactions.

And while some have historically fretted over the prudence of selling off a portion of the institution’s “rainy day” fund, selling while prices are sky-high makes good financial sense, and would easily leave plenty for future need.

Even if the political challenges to a gold sale prove insurmountable, there may still be a way to unlock its benefits; the IMF can simply revalue its gold holdings to match the market price, thus increasing the assets on its books without conducting even a single transaction.

Germany, Italy, and South Africa have all recently taken similar actions with their national gold holdings, and there is some speculation that the United States might follow suit. In fact, the IMF’s own accounting guidelines recommend countries value gold holdings at the market rate.

Awareness of the need to tap the IMF’s undervalued gold reserves is growing. In the past year, leading experts, top officials from Brazil and South Africa, and the G-24, which represents developing country interests at the Fund, all called on the organization to consider a gold sale.

Seeing that call through would take additional political will. But if the alternative is letting developing countries founder in the current crisis — or worse, bleeding them dry in order to protect the IMF’s balance sheets — then the choice couldn’t be clearer.

Michael Galant is a Senior Research and Outreach Associate, and Ivana Vasic-Lalovic is a Senior Research Associate, at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net) in Washington, DC

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Though access is back, throttling and platform blocks persist, reflecting tightened internet restrictions nationwide. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Oct 14 2025 (IPS)

At the end of September, the Taliban abruptly severed Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet in Afghanistan for 48 hours without any explanation. The disruption caused consternation and suffering among millions of Afghans, especially those who depend on the internet for education and online commerce.

Closing girls’ schools had not entirely stopped students from pursing education, as many found workarounds through online classes. They therefore, targeted Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet to close off all those possibilities

Even though the internet blockage has been lifted, its speed is significantly lower than normal, and certain social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook appear to be intentionally restricted, according to foreign journalists reporting from the country.

Nilam, 23, recalls, how her online English language lesson was suddenly disconnected, leaving her desperate. “At that moment, my world went dark. I felt like I had lost everything and all my dreams were destroyed right in front of me”. She recounts the previous decrees issued by the Taliban that closed down schools and universities, “and how many times I was forced to stay home”.

Online English courses, she said, was the only available channel left to her to learn a language and find a job, or study abroad. And when it appeared that it was also blocked she was lost and in total despair.

As she colourfully puts it, “It was as if I were living in the century of carrier pigeons; the Taliban have cut us off from the flow of global progress”, she said.

The Taliban’s stated reason for yanking Afghans off the internet was to curb “immorality,” arguing that widespread access among young people to the internet, and the use of smartphones generate moral corruption.

However, media experts reject that explanation as a cover for the Taliban’s main objective, which is to deny girls’ access to education, the flagship policy of the Islamist group since it returned to power four years ago.

Many women in Afghanistan relied on online study; tightening internet restrictions now make it far more difficult. Credit: Learning Together.

They first began by shutting off wireless internet in the provinces of Balkh, Baghlan, Kandahar, and Paktia. This was extended to fifteen other provinces the next day, denying access to internet to millions of Afghans. Closing girls’ schools had not entirely stopped students from pursing education, as many found workarounds through online classes. They therefore, targeted Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet to close off all those possibilities.

For many low-income households, Wi-Fi was the most affordable option because several family members could simultaneously use a single connection for study and work at a relatively cheaper cost compared to mobile data.

Nooria, in Mazar-i-Sharif, like many women who had lost jobs due to Taliban edicts, turned to online commerce to support her family.

“After the fall of the republic, I turned to online selling to cover living expenses. Through this work, I could meet my own needs and help support part of my family’s expenses. But now, with wireless internet cut off, continuing this work has become nearly impossible for me”, she complained bitterly.

As she explains, mobile data internet is prohibitively expensive. “By paying 2,000 Afghanis (about 26 Euros), our entire family could use wireless internet” she says. “My little sister would study, my brothers would work on their lessons, and I could continue my online work. But now, if we want to buy mobile data, we would have to pay separately for each person, a cost we simply cannot afford.”

Announcement posted at an internet provider notifying customers of an internet ban under new internet restrictions. Credit: Learning Together.

Ahmad, an internet service provider in Herat, emphasizes that limited access provides hardly meaningful internet use.

“Apart from simple messaging on WhatsApp, nothing else will be allowed. That means no education, no online work, no research, and no free connection with the outside world”, says Ahmad.

Last month’s outage was widely described by local users and providers as the most sweeping multi-province shutdown since the fall of the Afghan Republic on August 15, 2021.

At the beginning of 2025, 13.2 million – around 30.5 percent of the population – had access to the internet in Afghanistan, according to the specialist website DataReportal. Around 4.05 million people were using social media.

Experts believe the Taliban are attempting to completely isolate Afghan society from global communication, allowing only a small group of people connected to business or government to access the internet.

They warn that, if implemented, such restrictions would severely cripple the social, educational, and economic life of ordinary citizens. Analysts warn that this move will deal a severe blow to the education of Afghan women and girls, pushing society further into isolation.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

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