List of all videos available on this site

Kerala Backwaters

The backwaters of the Malabar coast in the state of Kerala in southern India form a network of lagoons and brackish lakes parallel to the coast. The whole represents approximately 900 kilometers of navigable waterways. This network includes 5 lakes connected by canals, sometimes artificial, which are fed by some forty rivers. It stretches almost half the length of the Kerala coast.

These backwaters are the result of wave action and coastal currents which have created small sandy islands along the coast.

The water in these backwaters is brackish, a mixture of fresh water and sea water. There is a very diverse fauna, made up of amphibians, crabs and numerous aquatic birds.

Sailing on the Meenachil river

The Meenachil River empties into Lake Vembanad after winding 78 kilometers from the Western Ghats. Life by the river is intense. We see women doing their laundry and their dishes in the waters of the river, a river polluted by urban and domestic waste along the entire length of the river.

There are also men busy collecting sand from the bottom of the river in a sometimes legal and often illegal way. The river sand trade is quite flourishing in the region. Brick factories are also looking for clay to make their bricks.

If navigation on these backwaters is extremely pleasant, the overexploitation of resources and the lack of wastewater treatment plants strongly weaken this ecosystem, practically unique in the world.

Spoken comments in the film: 

The brackish lakes of South India have become one of the hotspots in South India. Here are some images of Vembanad Lake and the banks of the Meenachi River. 

Near the town of Kottayam, whose name means: "inside a fort" lies the Vembanad Lake and a network of waterways named Backwaters. It is in fact complex sets of lagoons, lakes fed by rivers or rivers, a mixture of fresh water and sea water which sometimes mix. These natural waterways have been modified by man who has developed ditues and waterways for the transport of goods.