A new book shows how misguided decisions have pushed endangered Indian landscapes to destruction

Water slaps against the sides of the seventy-foot metal boat, the Golpata, as I descend the ladder on its side and step onto a smaller, almond-shaped wooden vessel in total darkness. It is August 2014, and the monsoon season is upon the delta.

There is no moon; the river reflects a cloche of a billion twinkling stars. The chizzzzzz of crickets is an almost meditative backdrop punctuated by the tokey-tokey-tokey call of the tokay gecko and the gentle splosh of oars slicing into water as Mujibur rows away from the Golpata and the boat arcs, in a graceful ellipse, into a tiny khal.

Mujibur is my guide, spotter, coffee-maker and oarsman. The khal we enter is among the last of the offshoot channels before the many tongues of the Sela river open into the Bay of Bengal, in Bangladesh. The channel we row through is narrow, and hemmed in by towers of pneumatophores – aerial roots that act like snorkels for mangrove trees – ghostly-white in the glow of my flashlight. Some shoot straight up like spear points, others curve in the air, some are stumpy and thick while still others have curlicued designs on them. Each belongs to a different species...

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