In the Sundarbans, going to work can mean entering a forest where Royal Bengal tigers live.
For many families here, that is part of everyday life. Men head into the forest to catch fish, collect crabs or gather honey, hoping to return home with enough to support their families.
Sometimes, they do not return.
Between 2016 and 2020, tiger attacks killed 67 people in the Sundarbans. Many more deaths may have gone unreported.
The women left behind after these attacks have come to be known as “tiger widows”.
Losing a husband can change everything at once. There is grief to live with, a household to run and an income that may suddenly disappear.
For some women, another cruelty follows.
They have reportedly been called “husband eaters”, blamed for their husbands’ deaths and abandoned by their own families. At a time when they need support the most, many are left trying to survive on their own.
In Jharkhali, some of these women are now doing something that makes you look at their story differently.
They are returning to the mangroves.
Returning to the forest that changed their lives
Tiger widows, along with other local women, are helping restore around 100 hectares of degraded mangrove habitat in Jharkhali.
Their goal is to plant one lakh mangrove saplings.
The significance of that work is hard to miss.
The same forest that provided their husbands with a livelihood also became the place where they lost them. Today, these women are helping rebuild that landscape for the families and wildlife that continue to depend on it.
Mangroves are deeply connected to life in the Sundarbans.
Their roots help protect coastal villages from the impact of cyclones and powerful waves. They provide habitat for fish and other wildlife, supporting communities that depend on fishing and crab collection for their livelihoods.
They also form part of the habitat of the Royal Bengal tiger.
For families living here, people, forests and wildlife exist within the same landscape. Their lives are tied together in ways that can bring both sustenance and risk.
A future where no woman becomes a ‘tiger widow’
This is what makes the women’s decision so powerful.
They know what human-wildlife conflict can take from a family. They have lived through its consequences themselves.
Yet their work today is focused on restoration.
Each sapling they plant becomes part of an effort to strengthen a forest that protects villages, supports livelihoods and gives wildlife the space it needs to survive.
Their story also carries an important reminder about conservation in places like the Sundarbans.
People living beside forests cannot be separated from conversations about protecting wildlife. Their safety, livelihoods and futures are part of the same question.
For these women, that question is deeply personal.
They are helping heal the same landscape that shaped their families’ lives and brought them immense loss.
And through 1,00,000 mangrove saplings, they are working towards a future where both people and wildlife have a better chance of surviving together, and where fewer women have to live with the “tiger widow” label.
