Abstract
This chapter deals with occupational issues faced by the inhabitants of Sundarban. They depend on farming and fishing, which are natural resource-based activities that are highly susceptible to climate stimuli. Farming is affected by seasonality, irrigational insufficiency, and other infrastructural issues. Fishing is constrained by environmental activism, which generally fails to consider the economic entitlements of fishers. Ecotourism falls flat because of the lack of participation by most local people; most of the revenue is drained by multinational companies and other stakeholders. The people of Sundarban, therefore, experience extreme marginality in their respective activities; they may not even get a job for more than 6 months at the local level. Thus, migration is often the best option to cope with the situation.
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Notes
- 1.
A person is classified as a cultivator if he or she is engaged in the cultivation of land owned or held by the government, private persons, or institutions for payment in money, kind, or share (Census 2011).
- 2.
A person is defined as an agricultural laborer if he or she works on another person’s land for wages in money, kind, or share (Census 2011).
- 3.
Agricultural Census of India (2010–11) classifies the size of landholding as follows: marginal (below 1.0 hect.), small (1.0–1.99 hect.), semi-medium (2.0–3.99 hect.), medium (4.0–9.99 hect.), and large (10 hect. and above) size holdings.
- 4.
Net area sown represents the area sown with crops for at least one in any of the crop season of the year, counting areas sown more than once in the same year only once.
- 5.
The people, especially communities, who depend on the natural environment of their locality to meet most of their material needs are known as “ecosystem people” (Kothari and Patel 2006).
- 6.
‘Beedi’ is Indian cigarette filled with tobacco flake and wrapped in a leaf of the Kendu tree. Women prepare and sell them for Rs. 80–100 for every 1000 pieces.
- 7.
‘Hariya’ is a local liquor prepared from rice fermentation. It is widely famous among the tribes. One tribal family earns an average of Rs. 2500–3000/week selling it at weekly arranged local markets.
- 8.
An engine van is made by setting up an engine in a paddle van.
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Mistri, A., Das, B. (2020). Occupational Issues in Sundarban. In: Environmental Change, Livelihood Issues and Migration. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8735-7_3
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