The Last Defense of the Lake: From Environmental Conservation to Political Revolution

Although recognized as one of Myanmar's 135 distinct indigenous groups, the Intha remain a "minority within a minority" in Southern Shan State, distinct in language and history from their Shan, Pa'O, Lisu, Taungtha, Kareni, and Danu neighbors, and their language is a branch of Widely accepted theories suggest their ancestors migrated from Lower Burma, Dawei, a long time ago, or a group of Tibeto-Burman who were still left behind. At the same time, the rest moved forward to the Irrawaddy Valley. Applying James C. Scott’s concept of “Zomia,” which describes upland societies that historically avoided centralized state control, the Intha experience can be understood as a form of aquatic adaptation. Rather than escaping into mountains, they survived on an economically marginal lake environment surrounded by hills. Their oral histories and religious traditions contain accounts of resistance against local feudal authorities. Even during British colonial rule, the region was viewed less as a profitable administrative center and more as a scenic recreational area.
This delicate socio-ecological balance began to shatter after the 2010 political reforms. Under President Thein Sein’s administration, military-tied tycoons and international investors targeted the lake's eastern shore for a massive "Hotel Zone" project. The infrastructure building has leveled hillsides, drained wetlands, and seized land with minimal compensation for the local population, leading to severe ecological damage, driving local fish populations toward extinction, and destroying traditional livelihoods.
Although Inle Lake was designated Myanmar's first UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2015, the surrounding Inlay Lake Wildlife Sanctuary had already been recognized as an ASEAN Heritage Park in 2003. It was later designated Myanmar's fifth Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 2018. Despite these international conservation recognitions, environmental degradation driven by deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, tourism development, and weak conservation governance has continued. One of the most controversial cases involved Myanmar Naing Group Co., Ltd., owned by U Tun Naing Shwe, son of former military ruler Than Shwe, which proposed to construct a luxury hotel on land that had previously been part of the Inle Lake Wildlife Sanctuary. The proposal sparked widespread opposition from local communities, environmental organizations, and government agencies, becoming a prominent example of the conflict between tourism development and environmental conservation around Inle Lake.
Many farmers and fishermen lost their way of life; many were forced to migrate abroad for work. Those who stayed were pushed into minimum-wage work in construction and the hospital sector. Some local activists and scholars have criticized the commercialization of Inle Lake’s cultural practices, arguing that activities such as staged leg-row fishing and ethnic performances risk transforming living traditions into tourist spectacles rather than preserving their original social meaning.
The commercialization of agriculture and watershed degradation has intensified the ecological crisis at Inle Lake. Historically, the lake’s unique wetland ecosystem allowed the Intha to develop floating-garden agriculture, with tomatoes becoming one of the region’s most important economic crops. However, expanding domestic and regional markets encouraged increased use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and commercial seeds, contributing to nutrient pollution and ecological stress.
 At the same time, state land policies allowed customary lands in Shan State to be classified as vacant or wasteland and allocated to large-scale investors and military-linked companies. Many Environmental organizations have documented how deforestation and resource extraction in Shan State’s watersheds contributed to soil erosion and environmental degradation.
These processes have increased sedimentation, reduced water quality, and threatened the long-term sustainability of traditional Intha livelihoods.
 
Interview with Nway La
Nway La (in English meaning “The Summer-Moon”) is one of the indigenous peoples who have witnessed this timeline firsthand.
Q: What was your life like before 2021?
Nway La: "Before the 2021 military coup, while running a nature-based tourism business in the Inle region with my family, I observed and documented the various ways in which the Inle Lake environment was being degraded. Just as I was collaborating with partners to actively conserve the natural environment of Inle Lake alongside my nature-based tourism work, the military coup occurred, causing my dream to be shattered."
 
Q: Can you elaborate on the root causes of Inle Lake's environmental degradation?
Nway La: "As Inle Lake is both a natural freshwater highland lake and a socio-ecological system, the root causes of its degradation lie in factors both human-induced and natural, such as water pollution, the shrinking of the water surface area, siltation and shallowing, and socio-economic inequities.
The deterioration of Inle Lake is primarily due to weak policy commitment regarding its management and conservation, as well as the pursuit of vested interests. The Inle region relies primarily on agriculture and tourism for its livelihood. Its deterioration stems from several factors: local administrators lack full decision-making authority, there is no full access to utilize locally collected taxes for regional preservation and protection, and residents, despite understanding the root causes of the issues, are denied the opportunity to take action."
Alongside military-linked business interests and expanding luxury tourism networks, global fashion and travel companies have increasingly transformed Inle Lake’s cultural heritage into a high-value commodity. The commercialization of lotus weaving illustrates how local traditions can become premium luxury products within global markets. Italian luxury brand Loro Piana has promoted Inle Lake lotus fiber as one of the world’s rarest natural textiles, with garments that require tens of thousands of hand-harvested lotus stems and sell for several thousand US dollars.
While such initiatives provide international visibility for local craftsmanship, critics argue that luxury branding often emphasizes romantic narratives of tradition and sustainability while obscuring the unequal distribution of value between global companies and local producers Similarly, high-end tourism operators have marketed Inle Lake through images of leg-row fishermen, floating gardens, and craft workshops, generating premium tourism experiences while raising questions about how much economic benefit remains within local communities and whether tourism growth contributes to long-term ecological protection.
The final breaking point arrived with the February 2021 military coup. The Myanmar military brutally cracked down on peaceful anti-coup protests. The long-peaceful Intha were forced to make a historic decision. For the first time in history, they formed their own armed resistance organization to join the broader national struggle for federalism against the military regime.
 
 
Q: How did you make the transition from conservation work to joining the armed movement?
Nway La: "I never thought I would end up here. If I think back, politics and revolution were not familiar terms to me, but somehow I have been involved with the Inle People's Defense Force (IPDF) since its very inception. I have played the role of filling in the gaps wherever needs arose. My work involves coordinating with various members and minimizing errors in the unit's operations. I enjoy working alongside the youth and fostering a sense of unity among us. I have dedicated significant effort to serving in various roles and ensuring a smooth handover of responsibilities to successors over the past five years."
 
Q: What is the organizational structure and political goal of your movement today?
Nway La: "Now, I serve as the Relations Officer at the Inle Region Liberation Organization (IRLO), which was formed in response to the military coup, recognizing the necessity of armed revolution with the political objective of achieving a transformation toward a federal democratic union that is appropriate for the Inle region. It was an umbrella organization federated with the IPDF (Inle People Defense Force), IWU (Inle Women Union), IFDM (Inle Federal Movement), the Inle Medical Team, and BOE NS (Nyaung Shwe Education Board). Efforts are also underway to strengthen the organization by engaging unions and Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) networks across the region. It is designed to ensure that the armed forces do not dominate the civilian sector and to safeguard values such as gender equality, bottom-up federalism, environmentalism, anti-fascism, and anti-extremism in race and religion, while providing services to the community. We welcome and support the emergence of a federal democratic system in Myanmar. With the establishment of a federal democratic union, we also look forward to a federal arrangement for the Inle region that is appropriate and well-suited to the area."
Five years since the establishment of IPDF (P3-1009), the unit actively fights alongside its neighboring ally, the Karenni People's Defense Force (KNDF). Yet, the resistance operates under severe constraints. Heightened military oppression, severe economic collapse, and the devastation of a recent earthquake have strained local public support. At the same time, geopolitical backing from key regional actors, including China and Russia, has strengthened the junta's position.
 
Q: How is the local community sustaining this effort amid these growing challenges?
Nway La: "The IRLO and IPDF have sustained ourselves through local support and solidarity despite our small population since the inception of the Spring Revolution. We still face significant needs and continue to struggle. Everyone knows that the effort must come from us, yet we naturally desire substantial and effective assistance."
For Nway La and his comrades, nature belongs to no single ethnicity or socioeconomic elite, but their identity, culture, and survival are inseparable from the waters of Inle Lake. As state-backed crony capitalism threatens to expand, the destruction of Inle Lake represents far more than environmental ruin. It threatens to erase a distinct culture that spent centuries living on the margins to evade state control and is now taking an unprecedented stand to ensure its future. Even in Myanmar's political context of resistance, the struggle is always built on ethnic nationalism against the Burman majority; the children of the lake, or Lake People, a minority within a minority, struggle to walk a different path toward bottom-up federalism with social-ecology consciousness. 
 
Reference List

• Myanmar.com. (2026). Civil war in Myanmar: Causes, timeline & impact.
• Khaing, K. K. (2012). Chapter 4. Household livelihood strategies of the Intha on Inle Lake, Myanmar. Chiang Mai University.
• Myanmar Center for Responsible Business, Danish Institute for Human Rights, & Institute for Human Rights and Business. (2015). Sector-wide impact assessment of tourism in Myanmar.
• The Irrawaddy. (2019, June 10). Inle Lake hotel proposal denied.
• Snowsill, C. (2020). Toxic tomatoes: Using object biography to explore Inle Lake’s sustainability crisis.
• Buijtendijk, H., & Tschunkert, K. (2016). Hotel industry expansion and sustainable development: A case study of Inle Lake, Myanmar.
• The lotus weavers of Myanmar by Snapdragon
• Gerard McDermott, January 15, 2026, The Diplomat: How the ‘Neo-Authoritarian Bloc’ Ensured the Survival of Myanmar’s Military Junta

 
Related Books & Resources

1. Cohen, E. (1988). Authenticity and commoditization in tourism.
2. Scott, J. C. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. Yale University Press.
3. Bookchin, M. (1990). The philosophy of social ecology: Essays on dialectical naturalism.
4. Transnational Institute. (2015). The meaning of land in Myanmar: A primer.
5. UNDP (2019). Protecting livelihoods and nature on Inle Lake.

 
Article was submitted via me by comrade Al Wine. 
Contact of Inle People's Defense Force (IPDF)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Inle.peopledefenseforce/
Email: [email protected]
 
Contact of Inle Region Liberation Organization
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