Sunday, October 18, 2009

Chesapeake Bay of Kashmir: Dal Lake

I'll probably write more about this later, but the picturesque "Jewel of Srinagar" -- a lake with luxury houseboats and palaces -- is in horrific shape. The government plan is to basically relocate everybody living on or around the lake to try and rescue it.

Like that has a chance. They won't be able to get them to move until the lake looks like and smells like a well-used outhouse. (And it's well on it's way.)

A few links on the issue:

The Dal Deluge

Fight over future of Kashmir's iconic Dal Lake (includes pictures and video)

A £180m weeding job: The lake that has shrunk to half its original size

I'm providing the middle of this article. The last paragraph is the sobering perspective.

On the east of the lake boatmen were hauling out weeds on behalf of the local authorities. On this side, however, the boatmen gathering the dark-green algae were farmers collecting it for their own use. Mr Dar, 62, who has been working as a boatman for 50 years, paddled to one of the lake's numerous floating gardens where, on a buoyant "field" made of reeds and composted weeds, the farmers raise a variety of crops.

"I grow tomatoes, melons, cucumbers and marrows," said Gulam Hassan, who was gathering weeds, leaning with all his weight on the supple willow pole to lever his dripping green haul from the water.

It is estimated that there are around 40,000 farmers such as Mr Hassan living on islands dotted around the lake who make their living in this way. As part of the plan for the Dal drawn up by the state and federal authorities, all will be forced to relocate to new homes in Srinagar, the state's summer capital that sprawls around the southern end of the lake. Many of these farmers are angry about the plan, saying it will mean an end to their livelihoods.

Although the new money to clean up the Dal has come from Delhi, much of the energy behind the effort belongs to Jammu and Kashmir's youthful Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah. He has made restoring the lake one of the top policy priorities. In an interview, the Chief Minister said that for decades people had considered the Dal a refuse dump where sewage could be pumped. "We did not wake up to the fact that it was going to fill up and catch up with us. A very concerted effort is now needed to clean it up," he added. "I am sure that we can rescue it. Without the Dal, Srinagar is just another town in the hills."


Dal Lake in Wikipedia (more pictures, and links to MORE pictures)

This small picture gives a bit of an idea of the lake's charm.

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In a related story (which I thought I posted about, but can't find), the lake palace featured in the James Bond movie "Octopussy" -- one of the better Roger Moore efforts -- recently didn't look like much of a lake palace, due to drought:

India's Lake Palace becomes Mud Palace, as drought takes its toll on the romantic resort


It wasn't a very deep lake to begin with, but still... this is rather striking.

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