As long as people’s representatives open road tracks around Phewa Lake and sediments to the south of Phewa Lake by clearing the Raniban forest, no order of the Supreme Court can save the lake. The track has been cut to build a motor road to Anadu village on the Phewa shore. Pokhara-Lekhnath Metropolitan City Ward 22 Chairman Mitralal Baral openly says that there was no Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) before the opening of track.

Yuvaraj Shrestha:  Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

The digging of track by uprooting trees in Raniban without any study and research causes debris to fall into the lake. Soil erosion will be graver in the rainy season, says Ashok Sapkota, executive director of Green Foundation Nepal. “In the rainy season, rain carries away soil from the road and causes landslide,” said Sapkota. “Such practices happening in the name of development are causing the lake bed to rise.”

Local representatives have no care for this. Surprisingly, instead of putting an end to these destructive practices, local representatives in Pokhara are abetting the trend. Ward Chairman Baral said: “During the election, our slogan was ‘One Tole, One Road’. The digging for roads now is to keep the promise.”

Before building a road, EIA is done to see what kinds of environmental damage can result in the nearby places and what kind of impact it has on the ecology. This aspect was ignored while constructing the motor road in Raniban, across the Phewa Lake–the second most popular tourist destination in the country. Environment management expert Sapkota said, “The extent of damage to the conservation area caused by haphazard bulldozing cannot be assessed.” He stressed the need for compulsory environmental assessment to prevent damage to nature, culture and society from development works.

A landslide from the World Peace Stupa that deposited into the Phew Lake three years ago. Photo: Yuvaraj Shrestha

The Pokhara-Lekhnath metropolis has set aside Rs 500,000 in the current fiscal year to open the track to Anadu village from the World Peace Stupa. The metropolis did not enquire while preparing the budget whether the due process had been completed before opening the track in Raniban across the lake.

Deubahadur Gurung, chairman of the consumer committee formed to build the road, admitted to have opened the track by felling trees. He added that the metropolis had been requested for additional budget.

Encroachment of Phewa Lake in the name of building roads is happening in every nook and corner of the natural resource. The road leading from Kinarpame to the Panchase hills towards the source of Phewa water has been widened. Rocks and soil falling from the structure get directly into the lake. Since the soil dug out while opening the track was not managed, says local conservationist Krishna Mani Baral, the debris were dropped straight into the water body.

Elected representatives have turned a blind eye to the construction works that are leading to a rise in the bed level. This statement of Pokhara-Lekhnath ward 6 chief Jagat Bahadur Pahari shows the level of irresponsibility of people’s representatives: “We did not know about road construction through Raniban. It should have been done without getting the debris into the lake.”

Phewa Lake has been listed among the Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Sites). Raniban across the lake is a conservation area too. But the ongoing activities threatens the existence of both the lake and the forest.

Dinesh Baral, officer at the World Piece Biodiversity Garden, said unauthorized construction of motor ways has hit flora and fauna at the lake and the nearby Raniban. “It’s inappropriate to construct road by destroying the conserved forest. It leads to an ecological imbalance.”

The Raniban road has imperiled the World Peace Stupa, said Uttam Buddhacharya, secretary at the Stupa Committee. “They have run the road over foot trails and ponds,” said Buddhacharya. “The road dug below the stupa has made landslides more imminent.”

In the rainy season of 2014, a massive landslide that cut rock right from the stupa yard on the slope above the lake had put both the stupa and the lake in peril. The mud slid into the lake. The rock fall before the road was built was attributed to a fragile geography. Buddhacharya argues that the road adds to the risk.

Besides, Pokhara Ward 22 Chair Baral has put forth a plan to build a Ring Road around Phewa Lake. He, however, admits that there has not been an environment impact assessment for it. Environmentalist Sapkota said haphazard construction of the ring road increases the possibility of more widespread landslides into the lake. Construction without proper study, like now, will lead to a faster encroachment of the lake, he warned.

Pokhara municipal authority seems to have ignored ongoing construction of roads around Phewa Lake in a way to threaten its existence. Mayor Manbahadur GC said the haphazard digging of tracks was funded by the budget released to the ward committees. He said the metropolis had decided to seek the federal government’s help in acquiring private land for expanding the lake.

The phenomenon of Phewa encroachment in the name of development is not new. This happened before the local elections were held last year. The road to Peace Stupa from Chhorepatan was dug seven years ago at the initiatives of the erstwhile Pumdibhumdi village development committee and the Pokhara sub-metropolis without assessing the environmental impact.

Some local residents had protested while the road to Peace Stupa was built. “They retaliated when we wanted to stop rampant bulldozing of land surfaces,” said Raju Chhetri, who runs Elite Café at the Stupa.

Located 742 metres above sea level, Phewa Lake has shrunk by more than half in the past five decades. According to records at the Department of Survey, the first survey conducted in 1957 in collaboration with the Indian survey team had determined the area of Phewa Lake as 22,000 ropanis. In 2000, the area shrunk to 9,955 ropanis.

According to a decade-old study report of the Survey Department, Phewa Lake is 18 metres deep, 4 km long and 100m to 2km wide, spread over an area of 5.23 square km or 10,280 ropani. The report shows that encroachment by humans and accumulation of debris have led to a gradual shrinking of the area under water. Survey in the same year showed that the Ramsar-listed lake had 652 ropanis of marshland and 2,101 ropanis of paddy fields.

Encroachment of the lake is more rapid through human activity than natural causes. Since there has been no study recently, the exact area of the lake is hard to ascertain.

Not only is the bed of Phewa Lake rising, it equally faces encroachment. Even land under water has been registered in people’s names. When the lake burst its banks 44 years ago, one could walk up to the Barahi Temple in the middle of the lake. Before embankment works three years later, many people registered the land during the survey, says Bishwa Prakash Lamichhane, coordinator of the committee formed to probe Phewa Lake encroachment.

In its report, the committee has recommended that the government revoke the land ownership certificates for 1,692 ropani, 6 anna and 1 Dam land in total. The report lists plot number and area of land claimed by more than a thousand individuals. As the lake bed surfaced, locals started cultivation on the land, which was registered in the names of people who cultivated it. The committee has pointed to the need for an investigation into the case. The committee has recommended acquisition of the land with compensation for the owners of the 540 ropani land historically belonging to the lake for which royalty was paid to the government regularly since 1990.

The fifteenth district council of the erstwhile District Development Committee and board meeting of the Pokhara Valley Town Development Committee held on August 13, 2007 barred construction within an area 65 metres from the lake. But nobody followed this standard. More than 300 houses and huts have been built without permission and in violation of the directive, according to the Phewa Lake Conservation and Management Section of the Pokhara-Lekhnath metropolis.

Existential threat

Continued unplanned cutting of road tracks on the hills surrounding the Phewa and above streams that flow into the lake have contributed to the unstoppable shrinking of the lake. Phirke Khola, which begins at Andherikuna on the foot of Sarangkot and flows through Parsyang, Malepatan and Marbar, meets Phewa Lake. Another stream, Bulaundi, also flows into the lake. The debris carried by Harpan Khola across Panchase gets dumped into the lake. Besides, Phirke and Budaundi also carry sewage into the lake. Harpan Khola deposits most boulders, aggregate and soil into the lake.

Roads are being built crisscrossing the course of these rivers, in a way to lead boulders, soil and sand ultimately into the lake. Houses near the water body have their sewers extended directly to the lake. Due to soil erosion caused by development works, continued floods and landslides have laid the lake bare above Pame towards the source of Phewa water.

According to the report prepared by the probe committee, 140,000 metric tons of rock and soil is brought into Phewa Lake every year by floods. “At this rate, the existence of Phewa Lake could be wiped out,” said committee coordinator Lamichhane.

For conservation of the lake, the committee recommended an end to encroachment and undertaking of development works in environment-friendly ways. The probe committee formed by the Council of Ministers on February 16, 2012 submitted its report to the government on May 16 that year incorporating the state of encroachment and suggestions for conservation of the lake.

Sadly, the report is gathering dust in Singha Durbar, the country’s secretariat, while local people’s representatives, responsible for conserving the lake of natural and tourist importance, are not doing anything worthwhile.

Studies undertaken at different times show that Phewa Lake faces an ultimate existential threat. Prof Dr Devendra Bahadur Lamichhane, who got his PhD for the research titled “Settlement and Environmental Appraisal of Lake Watershed, Pokhara”, says there is increasing threat of Phewa water being displaced by debris and sediments. He warns that Pokhara runs the risk of turning into a dead city with its water cover giving way to landmasses. Neither elected representatives nor local residents have paid attention to removing human encroachment, preventing floods and landslides and diverting sewers away from the lake.

Dumping into the lake

The cause of heavy siltation and stench at the lake is the lack of facility for managing city’s wastewater. As a result, most of the sewage from the metropolis ends up in the lake, literally turning Phewa into a dumping site.

The place where Phirkekhola, which cuts through Pokhara, meets Phewa Lake. While the dumping of sewage and waste pollutes the lake, its bed is also rising due to deposition of aggregate and sedimentation. Photo : Yuvaraj Shrestha

Metropolis Mayor GC has no remedy for this. He got away with a reply that works would begin for systematic urban development after making a master plan. The local government chief had no concrete idea for sewage management and desiltation of the lake.

Slow-paced conservation

The Payment for Ecosystem Services is being implemented for sustainable conservation of the Phewa watershed. The Phewa Watershed Ecosystem Management Board, coordinated by the then local development officer, was formed in 2016. Programmes were planned to prevent floods, landslides and soil erosion into the lake through conservation programmes in the upper catchments. Rs 3.1 million was spent then in total, including Rs 3 million from the Hario Ban Programme. For sediment retention in the upper catchments, 1 km drainage was constructed and gabions were laid while bioengineering techniques such as plantation of trees, grasses and shrubs were employed.

Since the local governments were elected last year, the programme has been halted. The board was reconstituted recently with Pokhara Mayor Manbahadur GC as its coordinator, but its works have not been satisfactory. Hario Ban programme field coordinator Purna Bahadur Kuwars said, “The local government should have interest; Phewa Lake conservation is not possible only with the will of non-government organizations.”