Loktak Lake’s phumdi islands face a slow death — and a bold plan to save them

On Loktak Lake, the great floating islands of vegetation called phumdi have thinned dramatically in a decade, threatening the habitat of the sangai, the brow-antlered deer found nowhere else on earth.

Fishers blame the Ithai Barrage, built in the 1980s to feed a hydropower plant, for holding the water level steady and starving the phumdi of their seasonal rhythm. Scientists largely agree, though a rehabilitation debate over the lake’s fishing families remains unresolved.

A pilot project is experimenting with anchored ‘nursery phumdi’ — grown away from the open lake — with early signs of regrowth.