Indian youth once hailed as conservation hero now spends days spraying disinfectant to manage Covid-19
- Bilal Ahmad Dar, featured in a documentary on the preservation of Kashmir’s Wular Lake, was passionately involved in the trash-filled water body’s clean-up
- The government later hired him to raise environmental awareness but the job involved relocation and got reassigned – leaving his efforts and the lake – in tatters
The Wular, considered to be one of Asia’s largest freshwater lakes, used to be a source of fish for communities living nearby. But a decision in the 1950s by the regional government to plant millions of water-sucking willows, to create plantations for growing firewood and timber, ended up almost destroying the water body. In recent years, it became fetid with garbage and plastic.
Bilal recalls hearing stories of the lake’s importance to villagers from his late father: “He would tell me the lake gave them everything needed to live – food and water. And we need to take care of it.”
After his father’s death in 2008, Bilal would row their boat (shikara) round the lake to pick up garbage and plastics that had collected there after flowing in from the Jehlum river that passes through Kashmir’s capital city of Srinagar. He would then sell the garbage to recycling agents to support his mother and two sisters.
