Myanmar’s Inle Lake has enchanted tourists for decades with its floating gardens and graceful leg-rowing fisherman, but experts warn it’s drying up and urgent action is needed to avoid disaster. Each year around 200,000 foreigners and one million locals visit Inle.

Many criss-cross the lake on small wooden boats to visit stilted villages of the Intha ethnic minority, others glide overhead in hot-air balloons.

But there is a darker side to this seemingly bucolic idyll, says Martin Michalon – a researcher into the impact of development on the lake – as farmers race to produce higher yields, pesticides and fertilisers slowly poison the water.