One of Peter Caton's exhibition photographs taken in the Sundarbans. Photo: Peter Caton/Tearfund
12 January 2010
The devastating impact of climate change on people living at the mouth of the river Ganges is being brought powerfully into focus in a new exhibition by a Tearfund photographer.
Peter Caton has recorded the human cost of rising sea levels and shifting weather patterns in the Sundarbans, a 20,000-square kilometre area of mangrove forest between India and Bangladesh that’s home to 4 million people.
By 2020, it’s estimated that 30,000 people will lose their homes here and that 15 per cent of the Sundarbans’ habitable land will succumb to the water.
Worsening plight
In words and photographs, the Sinking Sundarbans exhibition reveals the worsening plight of people living in an area that’s experiencing sea-level rises faster than anywhere else on earth.
Peter, who has visited the Sundarbans on five occasions, says he is often touched by the co-operation of the locals.
‘Why should they open up when their hardship is so apparent?’ he said. ‘I have come to realise that our presence offers the islanders some kind of hope. A hope that somewhere their voice will be heard.
Real warning
‘Our continued documentation of the area is crucial as it serves as a voice for the voiceless. I have come to realise that the rising sea situation we have all been warned about is happening now. Not next decade or next century but now and the Sundarbans is serving as a very real warning to us all.’
The exhibition, which includes images taken on a recent Tearfund trip, also powerfully conveys the impact of Cyclone Aila which buffeted the region last May.
Commissioned by Greenpeace, the Sinking Sundarbans is on display from 14 January at the Oxo Tower on the South Bank in London and runs until 25 January.