Noisy tourist longboats clog the narrow canals through stilt villages and floating gardens, and there are growing problems with rubbish disposal and water pollution.

"Small children leg-row little skiffs which are easily upset by tourist boats, everyone gets stared at and can't get around easily from their homes to their floating vegetable gardens. It all has the makings of a social and environmental disaster."

William Bleisch, a program director and researcher for the China Exploration and Research Society, described such alpine lakes in Southeast Asia as the Galpagos of Asia.

He told National Geographic that in three years of research however, he has found only 9 of the 17 endemic and range-restricted species historically reported in Inle Lake.

"We're still hopeful for the others, but some of them may be gone already, and others seem to be much rarer than they were in the past," he said, adding that it is also difficult now to find a pure specimen of the once prevalent endemic Inle carp.

Paul Craven, a travel consultant for Burma at Steppes Travel who knows the Inle area well, said: The villages of the lake do benefit from tourism, through employment and people buying things, but there is pollution from these boats and the lake is very shallow."

New hotels are being concentrated on the shore edge at Nyaungshwe, a former fishing village but now the lakes tourism hub. The plaster is hardly dry before they are opened to tourists, Mr Craven said.

He thinks part of the solution would be to spread tourism around.

Inle Lake is a jewel but there are other places in the country that, in different ways, are equally attractive, he said. But tourism is still very new and these areas dont have the facilities yet and the road infrastructure is bad.

I am being told by ground agents that the new buildings are far enough away from the shoreline and from each other, but only time will tell whether the development will be sustainable," he added.

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Burma's Inle Lake under threat from rapid tourist development