Loktak Lake Phumdis Floating Island Manipur

Loktak Lake in Bishnupur district of Manipur is the largest freshwater lake in northeast India and is unique for its phumdis — floating islands of accumulated organic matter, soil, and vegetation that cover over 70 square kilometers of the lake surface, some measuring several hectares and up to two meters thick. The phumdis are the habitat of the sangai (Cervus eldi eldi), the brow-antlered deer and Manipur's state animal, one of the world's rarest deer species which exists only at Loktak, with the Keibul Lamjao National Park established on the lake's phumdis as the world's only floating national park. Fishermen of the Meitei community live on large phumdis in floating huts (phumshang), farming fish from ring-fence fish enclosures (athaphum) set into the phumdis, in a form of aquaculture inseparable from the phumdi ecology. The phumdis are threatened by the regulation of lake levels by the Ithai dam, built in 1983, which has disrupted seasonal flood-drying cycles essential for phumdi health and sangai habitat. The Ima Market (women's market) of Imphal, traditionally supplied by fish from Loktak sold by Meitei women, is directly connected to the lake ecology through this fishing community.