The Lower Gangetic plains moist deciduous forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of Bangladesh and eastern India. The ecoregion covers an area of 254,100 square kilometres (98,100 sq mi), covering most of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Tripura, and extending into adjacent portions of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa states.
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Setting
The Lower Gangetic plains moist deciduous forests extends across the alluvial plain of the lower Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, which form the world's largest river delta. The ecoregion is currently one of the most densely populated regions on earth, and the forests have largely been replaced with intensive agriculture.
The ecoregion is bounded on the east and northeast by montane tropical rain forests; the Mizoram-Manipur-Kachin rain forests lie in the Chin Hills and Chittagong Hills to the east, and the Meghalaya subtropical forests lie in the Khasi Hills and Garo Hills to the northeast. To the north, the ecoregion extends to the base of the Himalayas, where it is bounded by the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands. The upper portion of the Brahmaputra valley in Assam is home to the humid lowland Brahmaputra Valley semi-evergreen forests. To the northwest, the forests are bounded by the Upper Gangetic plains moist deciduous forests. The dry Chota Nagpur dry deciduous forests lie on the Chota Nagpur Plateau to the southwest. The Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests and Sundarbans mangroves ecoregions lie in the swampy, semi-brackish and brackish southern reaches of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta bordering the Bay of Bengal.
Conservation
The ecoregion has been densely settled for many centuries, yet much forest remained until the early 20th century. Forest clearance accelerated during the 20th century, and by the end of the century, only 3% of the ecoregion remained in natural forest. Remaining forest areas are mostly small patches, except for one large block of forest south of Varanasi.
In 1997, the World Wildlife Fund identified over 40 protected areas in the ecoregion, with a combined area of approximately 7000 km², approximately 7% of the ecoregion's area. Over half of these protected areas were smaller than 100 km²