Champu Khangpok residents remove plastic and waste from Yangoi Achouba River, highlighting pollution threats to Loktak Lake. Community action underscores urgent need to restore the polluted river draining through Imphal into the Ramsar-listed lake.
TFM Desk
As is observed every year on the 14th of March in commemorating the importance of rivers in sustaining human lives and for the planetary health, Loktak fishers residing at Champu Khangpok Floating Island Village observed the day with Yangoi Achouba (Nambul) river cleanup.
Year 2026’s theme on ‘Protect Rivers, Protect People’ signify the intricate relationship rivers share with humans in sustaining lives and livelihoods on the one hand while sustaining healthy environment that can support all life forms that primarily depend on freshwater river ecosystem for their existence.
The Yangoi Achouba Turel, better known as Nambul River to the general mass, is one of the few important rivers to drain directly into the freshwater Loktak Lake – a Ramsar site.
The health of Nambul River signify the status of Loktak Lake, wherewith the current condition of the river being described as pitiful is fairly degraded with high pollution levels implying poor health status of the lake.
The river Nambul which flows through the densely populated Imphal city carry high pollutant loads and direct sewerage discharge from urban settlements that are deposited into Loktak Lake continuously every year without check.
The fishing families of Champu Khangpok floating island village, situated in the midst of the lake, had taken upon themselves the onus of organizing river cleanup of Nambul River stretch from Liklai Karong up to where the river flows directly into the lake on every occasion of environmental events.
Considering the large quantity of plastic and other domestic wastes carried by Nambul River and deposited directly into Loktak, Champu Khangpok resident Oinam Rajen Singh described the situation has bad and detrimental to the overall health of the lake.
Citing encroachments, pollution, siltation, weed infestation and eutrophication as major issues in the lake presently, Rajen called upon the relevant government agencies to address these issues on priority basis, otherwise the lake fares to degrade and degenerate each year, ultimately coming to the undesired condition when the water of Loktak will become useless for human use while possibility causing species decline in the lake.
The International Rivers Day is observed throughout the world to focus attention on rivers as vitally important for healthy ecosystems while sustaining lives and livelihoods for thousands of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) who depend entirely on rivers for everything in their lives.
The day also focuses on the negative anthropogenic activities like dam construction and diversion of rivers for ‘developmental’ projects that are highly detrimental to the health of the life-providing rivers.
The day also calls for letting rivers flow free without any obstruction, and to regain the passage of migratory fish species like salmon and trout that signify healthy river ecosystems while providing resources for local communities in sustaining their lives.
The day’s observation was supported by the Directorate of Environment & Climate Change, Government of Manipur and Bishnupur-based non-governmental organization People’s Resources Development Association (PRDA).