Last week I visited Inle Lake in the mountainous region of the
Shan State in Myanmar. The Shan State is as diverse geographically as it is
culturally; with several ethnic groups and many sub-groups calling the region
home. The drive to Inle Lake from Mandalay, although long, was incredibly stunning. The changing landscape form dry arid lands, to cool mountain ranges proves how diverse Myanmar can be.
Nestled in the Shan Mountains, Inle Lake is home to the Intha
people who live in towns and villages around the lake. They are predominantly
agriculturalists and fishermen who follow Bhuddism with traditional elements of
animism, and because of this are extremely resourceful. As well as producing all
their own food, most Intha also grow their own bamboo for building and maintaining
their unique stilt houses that sit by or on the water’s edge.
I organised an early morning boat ride for the following day to see the lake at sun rise. The silhouettes of fishermen amongst the misty mountains was breathtaking, and made the early start well worth it. I was told that a unique practice to the
Intha fishermen is their method of rowing their small narrow boats, which
involves wrapping one leg around a paddle to exert force whilst standing up, although,
there seems to be no obvious explanation for this practice.
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| Intha fishermen rowing with their feet |
Once the sun was in the sky, I aksed to visit the infamous floating farms on the lake, which
can be seen in the shallower parts of the lake, mainly in and around the
villages that lie to the west of the lake. I was told the floating farms were created by
digging up weeds from the deeper parts of the lake using large baskets attached
to long sticks. The weeds are taken back to shallower waters, where they are
spread out into narrow strips along with water hyacinth so that they float and are anchored down with bamboo sticks to hold them in place. This backbreaking process creates a natural
floating platform on which to grow fruit and vegetables that is fed by the natural flows of nutrients from the fresh water lake and are resistant to flooding as they move with the changing water levels. The floating farms allow for enough space in between strips so that the farmers can tend to their plants from their narrow
canal boats. They can also be cut, moved and sold as pieces of
land, which makes them an especially attractive livelihood income.
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| Floating gardens used to create boundaries for stilted houses on the river |
I was amazed by
the vastness of the farms, how they sprawled and seemed never ending, especially
from the perspective of a low canal boat. I had read about the farms before
visiting, but had no idea how much of the water they actually covered.
Interestingly, they seemed to be two distinctively different uses for the farms: floating gardens/farms can be used to create boundaries for stilted
houses in the villages (above image), whilst farmers owning larger floating farms would live
on stilted housing near their farm (below image). I was conscious of the fact that most of these larger farms were overgrown and unkept.
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| Larger floating farm, anchored with bamboo sticks |
On returning home, I researched the floating farms and found out that despite their potential, they are now becoming a serious problem as abandoned farms begin to encroach on the surface area of the lake. The farms have now covered 34% of the lake since 1960. It is not so much the floating gardens around the houses
that have proved to be problematic, rather, the larger strips of farm that have
become neglected causing them to over grow and become surrounded by water hyacinth,
blocking all light from reaching the water’s surface and making it impossible for
life to exist in these parts of the lake. These areas become undesirable for fish, as there is little
food for them to eat, which ultimately disrupts the natural flow of nutrients in the lake.
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| Overgrown and neglected floating farm |
There lacks a great deal of information and data on the
floating farms, so it is hard to get a picture of where the root of the problem
lies. My guess is a combination of factors: what was once a profitable income,
has now been abandoned for the even more attractive emerging tourism industry
in the area that is proving to be a great deal more profitable. Although the
floating gardens have the potential to help the Intha communities to be food
secure and adaptive to climate change, the influx of tourists and their fancy
hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops undeniably bring in more household income annually from only half a years work. With tourism comes other issues for
the community, including land grabbing for prime hotel locations, pollution from hotels and tourist boats, the
homogenisation of local culture as people flock to work in the area, as well as
the financial dependency on an unreliable market. The lake and the Intha
community are far from ready for the sudden influx of tourists, and this is reflected in the dilapidated farms that make up a large area of the lake.
Unless there are tight environmental regulations are enforced on tourism to
protect the fragile ecosystem of the lake and the unique livelihoods of the
Intha people, Inle Lake could become another Thailand; a cheap holiday haven at
the cost of cultural and natural diversity. I hope one day these farms will be brought back into productivity as not only do they have the potential to help the Intha adapt to climate change, but they are also a unique practice.
