Indawgyi Lake ( ) is one of the largest inland lakes in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

. It is located in Mohnyin Township in the

Kachin State Kachin State ( my, ကချင်ပြည်နယ်; Jingpho language, Kachin: ), also known by the endonym Kachinland, is the northernmost administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The lake measures east to west, and north to south. There are over 20

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

s around the lake. The predominant

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

s living in the surroundings of the lake are the Shan and the Kachin, who mainly practise

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

. It is above sea level.http://www.mrtv3.net.mm/newpaper/209newsn.pdf Page 11 Column 2 The lake is the main feature of the

Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary is a biosphere reserve in Myanmar, covering . It ranges in elevation from encompassing the surroundings of Indawgyi Lake in Mohnyin Township, Kachin State. It was gazetted in 2004, is recognized as an Important ...

It has a length of , width of seven miles and an area of . There are 11 village-tracts, 36 villages around the lake; 13 villages are on the bank of the lake.

Flora and fauna

Indawgyi Lake is within the confines of ''Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary'', which was established in 1999 by the Ministry of

Ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide fund ...

. The sanctuary, which encompasses , contains a variety of

animal species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexe ...

, including rare

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

and

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

. Indawgyi host more than 65 species of fish, but there are no

endemics Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

(a few fish that historically were believed to be endemic are now known to also occur elsewhere). One of Myanmar's important bird areas, 10

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

can be found. Of these species,

greylag geese The greylag goose or graylag goose (''Anser anser'') is a species of large goose in the waterfowl family Anatidae and the type species of the genus ''Anser (bird), Anser''. It has mottled and barred grey and white plumage and an orange beak and ...

Oriental darter The Oriental darter (''Anhinga melanogaster'') is a water bird of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. It has a long and slender neck with a straight, pointed bill and, like the cormorant, it hunts for fish while its body is submerged in water ...

and purple swamphen are prominent during the month of January. A tour of the lake by motor canoe allows one to view a large array of wetland species. It appears that the lake and surrounding wetlands provide an important winter feeding

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

. Indawgyi area is important for not only waterbird and water dependent bird but also Scavenging Birds like

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

because Indawgyi area holds one of the key vulture populations in Myanmar. Two Critically Endangered vulture species: the white-rumped vulture ''Gyps bengalensis'' and slender-billed vulture ''Gyps tenuirostris'' inhabit the whole year round and breed in this area. A large area of natural grassland in the northern part of the lake is the home of the endangered hog deer. Hog deer was discovered in the Indawgyi area in Northern Myanmar during the biodiversity surveys in 2011. A rapid assessment with local people indicated the resident population is facing threats such as subsistence hunting and habitat conversion for agriculture. Subsequent camera trapping in early 2012 confirmed the presence this species in the Indawgyi area.

Geology

Indawgyi Lake is a

sag pond A sag pond is a body of fresh water collected in the lowest parts of a depression formed between two sides of an active strike-slip, transtensional or normal fault zone. Formation A sag pond is formed along a strike-slip fault, which may creat ...

, formed at a releasing step-over, with

extensional fault An extensional fault is a fault caused by stretching of the Earth's crust. Stretching reduces the thickness and horizontally extends portions of the crust and/or lithosphere. In most cases such a fault is also a normal fault, but may create ...

s associated with the

Sagaing Fault The Sagaing Fault is a major fault in Burma, a mainly continental right-lateral transform fault between the Indian Plate and Sunda Plate. It links the divergent boundary in the Andaman Sea with the zone of active continental collision along the ...

– an active strike-slip fault the runs through Myanmar. Movement along the fault created a

pull-apart basin In geology, a basin is a region where subsidence generates accommodation space for the deposition of sediments. A pull-apart basin is a structural basin where two overlapping (en echelon) strike-slip faults or a fault bend creates an area of crus ...

similar to the

Salton Trough The Salton Trough is an active tectonic pull-apart basin, or graben. It lies within the Imperial, Riverside, and San Diego counties of southeastern California, United States and extends south of the Mexico–United States border into the sta ...

of California. Oral reports suggest the area was once a fertile valley when it suddenly flooded following an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

, submerging a village and killing its residents, although it remains unknown if the lake was a result of

subsidence Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope mov ...

or a landslide.

Conservation Intervention

The first conservation activities in Indawgyi Lake was in the colonial time by establishing 62,000ha of reserved forests for watershed conservation. In the past, the lake was naturally conserve due to the relatively low impact of the local communities. However, many domestic migrants moved to the area in the 1990s and caused a depletion of the natural environment in the lake basin. In recent years, the lake and its watershed forest was recognized as an important conservation area of both national and global levels. Therefore, it was designated as Indawgyi, a Wildlife Sanctuary (1999), an ASEAN Heritage Park (2004), an Asian – Australasian flyway partnership site (2014), a

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO, that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments. MAB's work enga ...

(2017) as well as

Key Biodiversity Areas The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) approach helps to identify and designate areas of international importance in terms of biodiversity conservation using globally standardised criteria. KBAs extend the Important Bird Area (IBA) concept to other taxon ...

(KBA) and

Important Bird and Biodiversity Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA). The comprehensive conservation strategy for Indawgyi Lake is based on practical, integrated solutions, and acknowledges the importance of local participation. The diverse strategy focuses on nine major topics (sustainable fisheries, community forestry, research and monitoring, community-based ecotourism, environmental education, community-based waste management, sanitation, sustainable farming, livelihood development) with individual projects and approaches led by Myanmar forest department with the collaboration of INGO;

Fauna & Flora International Fauna & Flora International (FFI) is an international conservation charity and non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the planet's threatened wildlife and habitats. Founded in 1903, it is the world's oldest international conserva ...

(FFI), local NGO; Friends of Wildlife, and several CSOs such as Indawgyi Natural Farming Association, Indawgyi Conservation and Development Association, Inn Chit Thu Ecotourism Development group, Shan Cultural Association and Parami Waste Management Group.

References

External links

Indawgyi lake wildlife sanctuary - Kachin state
''Asterism''
Fauna Flora International's video witch talk about fish decreasing
Lakes of Myanmar Important Bird Areas of Myanmar Pull-apart basins {{Myanmar-geo-stub