INLE
LAKE – GEOGRAPHY
News: Myanmar’s
famed Inle Lake chokes on floating farms
What's
in the news?
●
From a gently rocking boat, Nyunt Win
tends a floating tomato crop in the cool water of Myanmar’s famed Inle Lake,
nestled in the Shan Hills and once the country’s most popular tourist spot.
Key
takeaways:
●
The floating farms have become as
ubiquitous at the UNESCO-recognised
reserve as its houses on stilts and leg-rowing fisherman, but residents
warn that the plantations are slowly choking the lake.
Inle
Lake:
●
Inle Lake is located in Taunggyi district
in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state.
●
It is the second largest lake in Myanmar with an estimated surface area of
116sq.km.
Significance:
●
The wetland ecosystem of this freshwater
Inle Lake is home to diverse flora and fauna.
●
It is home to 267 species of birds, out of
which 82 are wetland birds. Inle Lake is a nesting place for globally
endangered Sarus cranes.
●
It also has 43 species of freshwater
fishes of which 9 species of fish are found nowhere else in the world.
●
Apart from its ecological importance, Inle
Lake is also unique for the way the local inhabitants have adapted their
lifestyle to their environment.
Conservation:
●
Presently, the lake gets funding from the
government of Norway for conservation purposes under the framework of the Inle
Lake Conservation and Rehabilitation project.