The euphoria surrounding football and the charisma of the tiger blended seamlessly in a pocket of the Sunderbans on Sunday.
A day-long football tournament, held at Pakhiralaya in Gosaba, on the fringes of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve (STR), had a dash of yellow and black stripes in everything.
The tournament was called the Tiger Cup. Eight teams, consisting of students of Classes XI and XII, from different corners of the mangrove delta participated in the knockout tournament.
The jerseys came in eight colours but each one had yellow and black striped sleeves. The trophies were modelled on the tiger.
A special attraction was a Chhau performance. Dancers from Purulia were brought in. A couple of them wore tiger masks for the performance.
“Football is a very popular sport. We want to link that euphoria with the charisma of the tiger. The popularity of football can be a great medium for the message of conservation of the tiger. The tournament was organised to commemorate the 50 years of tiger conservation (Project Tiger) in India,” said Joydip Kundu, of the Society for Heritage & Ecological Research (SHER), a wildlife NGO that organised the tournament.
March 3 is also celebrated as World Wildlife Day.
The tournament was part of a larger awareness campaign called Bagh Sankalp, which SHER runs in the Sunderbans, along with Sanctuary Nature Foundation and HT Parekh Foundation.
Workshops are organised with tourist guides and boatmen as part of the campaign. Conservation films are shown in schools.
“Our aim is to involve the community in saving the tiger,” said Kundu.
Around 3,000 people watched the matches on Sunday. The guest list included officers from the Sunderban Tiger Reserve and local panchayat representatives.
“Organising a football match is the most effective way to attract hundreds of community members and convey the message of saving the Sunderbans, protecting tigers, and preserving all other flora and fauna, regardless of size,” said Parvish Pandya of Sanctuary Nature Foundation, who came from Mumbai.
Many teachers cheered the students from the stands.
“The message of conservation reaches so many people in an entertaining yet effective way in an atmosphere like this,” said Animesh Sarkar, a teacher of Pakhiralaya High School.
The human-wildlife conflict in the Sunderbans saw a surge during the Covid pandemic.
As people lost livelihood and many people from the Sunderbans who worked outside as migrant labourers came back, the local population’s dependence on the forest kept rising. More people entered the forests to catch fish and crabs.
Close to 30 people were killed in tiger attacks in the Sunderbans between March 2020 and December 2021, based on informal reports.