Loktak Lake fishers in Northeast India assert their inherent right to their territory of life.

WORDS AND IMAGES Salam Rajesh

Champu Khangpok floating island village, Loktak Lake.

.

In the cold, misty winter morning before daybreak, Koi Tomba huddled in his dugout canoe stretching out the length of his gillnet that must be laid on the water, the upper line just below the water surface. At this time of the year, Loktak Lake wears a mysterious look, half hidden in the morning mist. Like Tomba, there are other fishers out there on the lake in their canoes, spread far from one another, barely visible in the mist.

Tomba got his nickname Koi Tomba from his bushy hair and beard (koi meaning “beard” in Manipuri). He has to feed a family of four. His wife and two sons are as much fishers as he is, being born and brought up as traditional fishers along the vast water spread of Loktak Lake. Generations and generations of his family have lived off the lake, catching fish day in and day out, year after year.

Generations and generations of Tomba’s family have lived off the lake, catching fish day in and day out, year after year.

For Tomba and his family, the lake provides for all their needs. By tradition, fishing is their only occupation. They do have a small plot of a paddy field on the shore, which provides them with rice, the staple diet, and vegetables. But most of the other fishers do not own any agricultural land, and fishing is the only activity they know and practice throughout their lives.

Fisherwomen at Champu Khangpok floating island village.

.

Loktak Lake is one of the significant eighty Ramsar sites in India, located south of the central Manipur plains. Manipur is one of the eight states that are collectively known as the North Eastern Region of India, situated in the far eastern frontier of India bordering Myanmar. The region is biologically sensitive, being encompassed within the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot.

Loktak is one of the largest inland freshwater lakes in the country, with a water spread of 289 square kilometers. It supports a wide diversity of biological life, including migratory fish species that swim there all the way from the Chindwin and Irrawaddy river systems in Myanmar to spawn and several species of migratory water birds that fly along two important international flyways — the Central Asian Flyway and the East Asian–Australasian Flyway — during the winter months from October to February.

The lake that is a source of life for Koi Tomba and his family, in addition to supporting high biodiversity, has itself been fighting, however, to stay fit and healthy for the past four decades. Human intervention in the form of the Ithai Barrage, commissioned in January 1983 for the Loktak Hydroelectric Power Project, has turned the table upside down.

The law labeled Tomba and the other fishers as ‘illegal occupiers’ in the lake.

The Ithai Barrage was built at the confluence of the Manipur and Khuga Rivers, at the southern edge of the lake. The barrage effected a drastic change in the lake’s hydrological regime. It turned the lake into an artificial reservoir, a vast spread of water more akin to a huge pond. By maintaining a constant water level at 768.5 meters above the mean sea level for the hydro project, the barrage halted the annual fluctuation in the lake’s water level.

This meant that the environmental flow of the two rivers associated with the lake was considerably reduced, rendering the lake’s water almost stagnant. Silt load deposits from the catchments played havoc with the lake bed, making the bed shallower with each passing year. The stagnant water induced visible changes in the character of the vegetation.

The native aquatic plants were overrun by an invasion of alien species of plants such as Pontederia crassipes, Alternanthera philoxeroides, Pistia stratiotes, and Brachiaria mutica, which have since forced a sharp decline in the native species of edible aquatic plants that provide food supplements for the Loktak fishers. The proliferation of the invasive plant species also reduced the open water available for capture fishery, impacting the earning capability of the fishers.

Like other Loktak fishers, Koi Tomba lives part of his life in khangpok-shang, shelter huts made of bamboo and thatch built on top of floating biomass: thick heterogeneous mats of thriving and decaying vegetation locally known as phumdi. A thirty-square-foot biomass mat can support a khangpok-shang hut for a family of five. A good number of the edible aquatic plants that are food for Tomba and the other fishers grow directly on the phumdi. The amazing thing with the phumdi is that the shelter huts float with the biomass. So, when there is an exceptionally strong wind, if the anchoring with bamboo poles is not strong enough, one can expect the khangpok-shang to be blown miles away!

A fisher in front of his khangpok-shang at Champu Khangpok floating island village.

.

In the fall of 2011, tragedy struck for Tomba and all the Loktak fishers. In 2006, the Manipur Government passed a new law — the Manipur Loktak Lake (Protection) Act, 2006 — which defined the water spread as a “core [protection] zone” and imposed restrictions. The law labeled Tomba and the other fishers as “illegal occupiers” in the lake, and they were asked to vacate from the lake. The Loktak Development Authority (LDA), which was in charge of implementing the law, launched an eviction drive in November of 2011, burning more than seven hundred khangpok-shang. Tomba and the other fishers were driven out of the lake. Their huts and all their personal belongings, including their fishing gear and nets, went up in smoke.

In the aftermath of the eviction drive, the fishers formed a union to oppose the state, which made them “illegal occupiers” in their own territory of life. The union — All Loktak Lake Areas Fishers’ Union, Manipur — resisted the eviction drive for three continuous years, from 2011 through to 2013, fighting back vigorously to protect their rights within their traditional domain.

Sitting heartbroken in a makeshift hut on the shore, Tomba said with sorrow, “Why has the state pursued us like animals? We know no other occupation except fishing. Where can we go now? Loktak is our home and we will fight for our rights.”

And they fought back unflinchingly. The union filed a petition with the Manipur High Court that stayed the state’s eviction drive, citing faults in the government’s process. No prior consultations with the fishers had been held by LDA, the implementing agency, and the existing rights and privileges of the fishers were never considered.

Apart from fighting for their rights, which has been an ongoing process since 2011, the Loktak fishers are actively contributing to the long-term conservation of the lake on their own terms, applying their traditional knowledge and wisdom to the wise use of the lake’s available resources.

Loktak fishers are actively contributing to the long-term conservation of the lake on their own terms.

Oinam Rajen, the secretary of the union, urged the fishers to get involved with the union’s campaign for ecosystem restoration of the lake. To position himself as an example, Rajen made an open-water aquaculture pond using the floating biomass. He placed cut rectangular strips of the biomass in a circle to form the pond and started cultivating Euryale ferox, which is locally consumed as food and had been declining steadily like so many other edible aquatic plants due to the gradual degradation of the lake water caused by siltation, pollution, and eutrophication. The invasive alien plant species add to the loss.

For Tomba, Rajen, and the other fisher families, the loss of the migratory fish population is the most devastating event in their lives. The Ithai Barrage completely blocked the fish’s passage due to the absence of a fish ladder. In the pre-barrage era, shoals of the migratory fish — such as Osteobrama belangeri, Wallago attu, Labeo bata, and Cirrhinus reba — swam up to the lake and the upstream rivers for their seasonal migration. This provided the lake fishers, as much as the locals living by the riversides, with bountiful harvests of fish, and life was pleasant for all. Everything changed when the barrage came up in the 1980s.

The lake managers and Loktak fishers are frequently engaged in ongoing disputes. For one thing, the lake managers want to sweep the lake clean of the biomass, claiming that it hampers the maintenance of the desired water volume for the hydro project. The fishers, on the other hand, assert that the complete removal of the biomass is detrimental to the lake’s ecology. The biomass is part of the natural system, providing food and fodder for the locals and offering shelter and habitat for the avifauna, water birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other microorganisms.

A local sourcing Zizania latifolia from the lake, to be used as fodder for cattle.

.

In addition to furnishing support for shelter huts, the biomass protects the fishers from strong winds when they are out on the lake. Rajen reported that, when the LDA started removing the biomass in large swaths, the waves in the open water became more violent during rain storms, endangering the lives of the fishers. In fact, more than ten fishers have lost their lives by drowning in the lake.

The fishers also object to the state’s proposal for a large-scale tourism plan, asserting that the proposal will upset the traditional fishery with the introduction of motorboat pathways for tourists, which would hamper the fishers’ ability to lay their gill nets and practice capture fishery. Motorboats would also disturb the feeding migratory water birds that come in their thousands during the winter months.

For the fisher families, the loss of the migratory fish population is the most devastating event in their lives.

The proposed construction of multi-storied tourist resorts on the lakeshore would completely change the serene natural setting of the lake, Rajen shared, emphasizing that the uncontrolled influx of large numbers of tourists would jeopardize the fishers’ traditional lifestyle. The proposal contradicts the principles of the Ramsar guidelines for the wise use of the lake as well as India’s national Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules of 2017, he added.

In early 2023, an Expert Advisory Committee to oversee the management of Loktak Lake came up with recommendations focused on a more scientific and rational approach to the conservation of the lake. While suggesting a complete overhaul of the present setup of the LDA, the committee stressed the need to incorporate the traditional wisdom and knowledge of the Loktak fishers for the long-term management of the lake. This was a huge breather for Koi Tomba, Oinam Rajen, and all the fisher families.

This is their territory of life.

The story does not end here. At present, approximately 140 fisher families live in a cluster of khangpok-shang in two localities, Komjao and Langolsabi, which make for a unique floating island village called Champu Khangpok. The fishers are campaigning for the right to live and settle in this floating island village in the midst of the lake. Their argument is that they had been living on the lake long before the new law was implemented. This is their territory of life, a notion that even the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) respects and acknowledges in discussions that aim to encourage Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ active conservation strategies.

Mother and child at Champu Khangpok floating island village.

.

The Expert Advisory Committee, too, emphasized that point in recommending that the floating island village be given special status as a “heritage village.” In its 2022 state election manifesto, the ruling political party in Manipur, Bharatiya Janata Party, “promised” to accord heritage village status to Champu Khangpok. The community can then halt undesired projects, such as tourism plans. If and when this heritage village becomes a reality, Oinam Rajen and all of the fisher families living in the floating island village will rest assured that they and their future generations will live in peace amid the serene setting of Loktak Lake, at one with nature on their own terms.

World Wetlands Day observation by Loktak fishers at Loktak Lake.

.

Support the Cause: Help the Loktak fishers. Persuade the Ramsar Secretariat to conduct a Current Status Review of the Loktak Ramsar site at ramsar@ramsar.org. Read more at ramsar.org and thefrontiermanipur.com/placing-loktak-ramsar-site-at-the-centrestage-of-sustainability/

.

Back to Vol. 13 | Read the Table of Contents | Like Our Stories? Please Donate!

.
Salam Rajesh belongs to the Indigenous Meitei community of Manipur State in India’s far east. A journalist by profession, he has worked closely with the Indigenous Loktak fishers for the past two decades. He is a member of IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) and of the Technical Committee of Manipur State Wetlands Authority.