In Protecting The Kashmir Valley, Wular Lake Has Become Harder To Save thewire.in

It was never easy being an environmental warrior, but it’s even harder now in the Kashmir Valley. Its population is already scared and cynical, and security personnel swarm the place.

Jalal Ud Din Baba has been fighting to save Wular lake, once Asia’s largest freshwater lake but today little more than a big pond. It once occupied an area of 272 sq. km but has since shrunk to 72 sq. km, with only 24 sq. km of open water left.

It’s hard to believe the lake is also only 15 feet deep, especially when you stand at its edge and behold the Pir Panjal mountains in the distance. But it’s the painful price heavy siltation as a result of deforestation and unrestricted dumping of effluents and human excreta.

Baba isn’t afraid of the challenges this state of affairs poses. “I grew up on the banks of the Wular lake in the city of Sopore,” he told The Wire. “My forefathers used to catch fish and harvest water chestnuts in the months of September and October, but all that has changed.”

Industrial and residential effluents from the cities that discharge into the lake aren’t the only reasons Wular’s water has deteriorated. “To make matters worse, the spread of the invasive alligator weed is slowly destroying the beneficial vegetation growing in the lake, with biologists warning that if this is not controlled, it can spread over the entire lake.