A preliminary appraisal of the mobility of tribal communities in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, India

The Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities inhabiting the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta are socioeconomically deprived and forced to migrate in the face of intensifying climatic hazards. The lack of caste-disaggregated governmental data, and several lacunae in policymaking and implementation, have made it difficult to assess the socioeconomic conditions, migration patterns, and adaptation needs of these communities. To address this gap, the present study undertakes the analysis of available secondary data and literature alongside village-level hazard mapping and a primary survey of 600 tribal households to understand, for the first time, the mobility of tribal people under multiple climatic hazard conditions vis-à-vis their socioeconomic deprivation. While disparities between the decadal growth rate of the ST population in the region might indicate their permanent displacement and internal migration, the paper draws a few robust observations from the primary survey of the ST households under high and low deprivation categories to understand their seasonal migration behaviour from villages impacted by high, medium, and low levels of climatic hazards. The probability of migration was assessed using binary logistic regression analysis involving hazard incidences, household-level deprivation, agricultural landholding, household size, and access to mangrove ecosystem services. The study seeks to open fresh avenues for future research into suitable pathways for in-situ adaptation, safe migration practices, and progressive policy changes to promote the sustainable development of the tribal communities in climate-impacted regions like the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve.