{"id":73256,"date":"2025-08-05T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T04:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/aug\/05\/wular-lake-kashmir-lotus-flowers-bloom-after-three-decades-aoe"},"modified":"2025-08-05T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T04:00:43","slug":"joy-and-relief-as-lotus-flowers-bloom-again-in-kashmiri-lake-after-three-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=73256","title":{"rendered":"Joy and relief as lotus flowers bloom again in Kashmiri lake after three decades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wular Lake once supported 5,000 people who harvested the plant\u2019s edible roots, until the lake silted up after floods. Now the lotuses are back <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe threw seeds into the lake hundreds of times, but nothing grew. It\u2019s only now, after the silt was cleared, that we see the flowers again after nearly 33 years,\u201d says Bashir Ahmad, a 65-year-old who fishes in Kashmir\u2019s Wular Lake for his livelihood.<\/p>\n<p>Wular was once among Asia\u2019s largest freshwater lakes. It lies in the Kashmir valley, about 18 miles (30km) north-west of Srinagar, at the foot of the Pir Panjal and Himalayan mountain ranges. It was renowned for its high-quality lotus plants, and sustained the livelihoods of more than 5,000 people who harvested and sold <em>nadru<\/em> \u2013 the edible lotus stem cherished as a delicacy in Kashmiri households and which features in <em>wazwan<\/em>, the region\u2019s traditional multi-course celebratory meals.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/aug\/05\/wular-lake-kashmir-lotus-flowers-bloom-after-three-decades-aoe\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wular Lake once supported 5,000 people who harvested the plant\u2019s edible roots, until the lake silted up after floods. Now the lotuses are back \u201cWe threw seeds into the lake hundreds of times, but nothing grew. It\u2019s only now, after the silt was cleared,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4882,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[826,456,1089,464,65,62,432,61,827,3375,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-water","category-conservation","category-endangered-habitats","category-endangered-species","category-environment","category-india","category-kashmir","category-south-and-central-asia","category-water","category-wild-flowers","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4882"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73257,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73256\/revisions\/73257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}