Bali Island (Sundarbans), Feb. 11: With the Sundarbans, the world's largest estuarine delta sinking by 2.5 mm every year, thanks to global warming, the British Deputy High Commission yesterday initiated a program to combat the adverse impacts of climate change. The project involves the plantation of mangrove trees along the six kilometre-long river banks of the Mathurakhand and Amlamethi villages of the Bali Island of the Sundarbans. Inaugurated by the British High Commissioner to India, Mr Richard Stagg, the project is being implemented by a Kolkata-based nongovernmental organisation (NGO), Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS). The $60,000 (around Rs 22 lakhs) funded project, will involve the plantation of over four lakhs mangrove trees along the river banks. Other than mangrove plantation and restoration, the three-part programme also involves awareness building about climate change and its impacts for the villagers through seminars and meetings. The third part includes documentation so the same can be successfully replicated in other islands of this UNESCO world heritage site. Highlighting the importance of the presence of mangrove forests, Mr Stagg, pointed out the wind speed of the cyclone SIDR, which passed over the state and hit Bangladesh in September 2007, was brought down from 240 kilometres per hour to 100 kilometres per hour. 50,000 saplings that will initially be planted have already been procured. The seeds are collected from fruits found floating near the river banks. The initial plantation will be completed within April this year while the main plantation programme will be carried throughout the year. "The main season for plantation of these mangrove saplings is April. It will take at least a year for the trees to grow up and withstand the rise in sea levels,' Mrs Ajanta De, project manager, NEWS, said. Fourteen local women in Mathurakhand have been trained to work in the tree nursery and do the actual mangrove plantation and post-plantation maintenance.