In Myanmar, a Lake That Sustained Generations Feels Strains
Oliver said that The ecology of Indawgyi Lake has been severely impacted by silt and mercury pollution from mining and overfishing, so much
that it’s become hard for the local fishers to make a living,
In the mid-1990s, Myanmar’s army captured the Hpakant jadeite mine, the world’s richest, from the Kachin
Independence Army, a rebel force of around 10,000 men, about 35 miles north of Indawgyi Lake.
By DOUG CLARKMAY 28, 2017
LONTON, Myanmar — Cresting a mountain pass on a freshly bulldozed road, Indawgyi Lake and its valley appear below, pastoral and calm.
Increasing commercialization of the region’s economy also led to the expansion of illegal gold mines in the mountains above Indawgyi Lake.
These migrants established five villages and introduced fishing techniques like small-gauge gillnets
and electroshock fishing that began depleting the lake’s fish stocks.
But despite the encircling mountains and buffering remoteness, Indawgyi Lake is straining under many of the same environmental
and conflict-related challenges that are stressing the fragile nation.
For centuries, the indigenous Kachin people here in Myanmar’s remote north planted rice when the lake flooded their fields during the monsoon, fished its waters
and hunted its wetlands and the surrounding mountains.