Swatch of No Ground Marine Protected Area is a protected area of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. The reserve covers an area of 1,636 km2 (632 sq mi).[1]
| Swatch of No Ground Marine Protected Area সোয়াচ অফ নো গ্রাউন্ড মেরিন সংরক্ষিত এলাকা | |
|---|---|
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  Location of Swatch of No Ground in Bangladesh | |
| Location | Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh |
| Nearest city | Bagerhat |
| Coordinates | 21°15′00″N 89°28′00″E / 21.2500°N 89.4667°E |
| Area | 1738 sq km |
| Established | 2014 |
| Governing body | Forest Department, Government of Bangladesh |
It was established on 26 October 2014, making it the first Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the country. The area hosts important habitats for several endangered creatures such as various species of dolphins and whales.[2]
Geography edit
The Swatch of No Ground (SoNG) is a 14 km wide trench in the Bay of Bengal. It is located 30 km from Dublar Char Islands, located in the Sundarbans. This deepest trench has a record size of about 1340 meters (400–450 m deeper than the surrounding mean seafloor depth of 1000 m).[3] It has an average depth of about 1,200 meters underwater. This underwater trench is a part of the Bengal Fan, the largest underwater fan in the world.[4][5] The fan in the Bay of Bengal, south of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, is also known as Ganga Fan.
Biodiversity edit
The area has notable biodiversity of oceanic fauna such as cetaceans, sea turtles, fish, and sea birds. Among these, local populations of cetaceans have been the primal focus of past studies; core species include Bryde's whales, spinner dolphins, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins, Irrawaddy dolphins, Indo-Pacific finless porpoises, and species with less-frequency include minke whales, rough-toothed dolphins and false killer whales.[6][7] Some of these species are genetically unique and endangered.[8]
There are a number of other notable species in the area, such as whale sharks, hammerhead sharks, tunas, groupers, hawksbill turtles, olive ridley turtles, masked boobies, great black-backed gulls, crested terns, swimming crabs, and so on.[7]
History edit
In the past, fishermen who lived nearby did not get any measurement by their native bamboo measurement system "Bam" (Bengali: বাম), and named it "Na Bam" (Bengali: না বাম, No Bam or, Bamless). It is one of the eleven largest valleys in the world. It is said[weasel words] that here in 1863, a 212 tonne gunboat named Gadfly sank in a storm while carrying a huge amount of treasure from India to the United Kingdom.[9][full citation needed]
See also edit
- Sundarbans National Park
- Nijhum Dwip National Park and St. Martin's Island - MPAs with marine mammal diversity, declared after the Swatch of No Ground MPA[10]
- List of protected areas of Bangladesh
References edit
- ^ "বন্যপ্রানী অভয়ারণ্য" [Wildlife Sanctuary]. জীববৈচিত্র্য ও বন্যপ্রাণী সংরক্ষণ (in Bengali). 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
- ^ "Swatch of No-Ground declared protected zone". The Daily Star. Retrieved 2022-02-26.
- ^ Morphological features in the Bay of Bengal Archived 14 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine URL accessed 21 January 2007
- ^ Curray, Joseph R.; Emmel, Frans J.; Moore (December 2002). "The Bengal Fan: morphology, geometry, stratigraphy, history and processes". Marine and Petroleum Geology. 19 (10). Elsevier Science Ltd: 1191–1223. Bibcode:2002MarPG..19.1191C. doi:10.1016/S0264-8172(03)00035-7.
- ^ France-Lanord, Christian; Spiess, Volkhard; Molnar, Peter; Curray, Joseph R. (March 2000). "Summary on the Bengal Fan: An introduction to a drilling proposal" (PDF). Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
- ^ Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project, 2015, Proposal to establish a marine protected area in the Swatch-of-No-Ground submarine canyon and surrounding coastal waters in the Bay of Bengal (pdf)
- ^ a b Anisuzzaman Khan (2017), "Swatch of No-ground: A treasure trove of marine lives"
- ^ Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, Swatch of No Ground IMMA
- ^ Current Affairs, January 2017, p. 91
- ^ The Business Standard, 2021, High-powered team suggested for supervision of marine protected areas