New Delhi, June 21 -- The Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, where the Sundarbans (the world's largest mangrove ecosystem) reside, is facing a confluence of environmental pressures more than just sea-level rise, the issue that dominates climate debate. It is the underreported role of transnational illicit sand extraction networks, colloquially termed "sand mafias," in accelerating the structural collapse of deltaic geomorphology across the India-Bangladesh border region. Illicit extraction constitutes a primary, yet politically neglected driver of one of the world's most consequential climate migration crises.

In global environmental discourse, the Sundarbans is almost invariably framed as a casualty of anthropogenic climate change,i.e. a low-lyi...