Bagerhat: Though the Sundarbans is not too far away from the district town, Bagerhat girls Ona and Samia have never been there, but they have heard about the mangrove forest a lot and read many stories about it.  

With the Tiger Caravan has carried the forest with the tiger up to their doorsteps, Ona and Samia are now hearing about the forest, a home to the Bengal Tiger, even louder.  

There are many reasons that the Tiger Caravan, which started its countrywide campaign to save the Sundarbans and its remaining tiger population on 11 February, has already generated a lot of enthusiasm among the young and the old alike.

Travelled miles with stoppages in Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Faridpur, Madaripur, Barisal, Jhalakati and Pirojpur before arriving at Bagerhat, it has already turned into a kind of peed show making the forest and the tigers alive from the replicas, followed by a street play performance.  

After enjoying the Caravan’s exhibits at Khan Jahan Ali Degree College on Bagerhat-Khulna highway, class XI students Jannatunnesa Ona and Samia Khatun expressed their delight and love about the forest.

If the tigers are to be protected, the forest needs to be protected first, this was the unequivocal message the two girls boldly carry.

It is also true that the forest will become vulnerable and can easily be denuded if the tigers are not there to protect it, said Farhana Khan, a student of Bagerhat Government PC College.

M Rabiul Islam, Farhana’s classmate, also noted that the tiger population of the Sundarbans has now been in risk because of wild-animal hunter cartels and smugglers.

‘The Sundarbans protect the people of Bagerhat and other the southern regions of the country from natural disasters. So, the tigers need to be saved to save the Sundarnbans,’ he said.

This is the impact that the Caravan initiative planned to create - a close to holistic picture of the relation among the forest, its flagship species tiger and the people.

Talking to United News of Bangladesh on Saturday, Tiger Caravan team leader Md Mamun Hossain said they are going to travel and arrange the exhibit in different areas of the district, particularly in educational institutions, for five days.

The team has a target to travel across the country for 102 days to raise awareness about tigers, he said.

The Tiger Caravan has been launched as part of a two-year-long national tiger awareness campaign about the Sundarbans and its endangered species.

The campaign will also witness other programmes in phases, including developing mobile apps on the condition of wildlife in Sundarbans.