LONDON — In his 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” Salman Rushdie describes the Sundarbans, the mangrove forest that traces the southwestern edge of Bangladesh, as “so thick that history has hardly ever found the way in.” For his characters, the forest is a site of magic and danger, a mythic place from which it is impossible to escape.

Today, you can visit this eerie jungle, taking a boat from the town of Khulna and making your way slowly through the narrow islets of the Meghna River, finishing your journey where the river meets the sea, possibly catching sight of a pink Irrawaddy dolphin on your way. If you leave the boat and step onto shore, your feet sinking into the deep purple silt, you come face to face with the world’s strangest trees, a mass of reedy, irregular trunks with roots submerged in water. This looks like a place men have yet to subdue. “The Sundarbans: it swallows them up,” Mr. Rushdie writes.

We know that Bangladesh will be one of the first nations to be transformed by the rising temperatures that come with man-made climate change. The Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, may be one of the country’s only resources to mitigate against the coming devastation. Straddling the border between the land and the sea, the mangrove provides a crucial buffer from the harsh waves that swirl in the Bay of Bengal. Mangrove trees are also known as carbon sinks: They reduce greenhouse gases by capturing carbon dioxide and taking it out of circulation.

Yet the greatest blow to the Sundarbans may be from within. The Bangladeshi government has broken ground on a coal-fired power plant to be built in Rampal, just 14 kilometers northeast of the forest. The plans have stirred controversy in Bangladesh, raising the issue of whether, given the complex developmental challenges the country faces, it can afford to consider the environment.