Ta Ngel village slated to be destroyed by a planned Chinese dam in the Cardamom Mountains

Ta Ngel village in Prolay district to be destroyed by the Chinese dam planned for constructi​on next year at Areng River in the Cardamon Mountains in Koh Kong, 17 April 2012. Video by Theary Seng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJwjnqiUbtA

Road to Cardamon Mountains where Chinese company will build dam with serious concerns for local indigenous population​, flora and fauna, wild animals and other environmen​tal disaster - 18 April 2012

Alarm over proposed dam

A view of the Central Cardamom Protected Forest is seen in Koh Kong province in December of last year. (Will Baxter)

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
David Boyle with additional reporting by Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Cassandra Yeap
The Phnom Penh Post

The Sam Rainsy Party has asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to verify the details of a proposed dam that could inundate about 10,000 hectares of protected forest, citing concerns that it would lead to rampant illegal logging and devastate a traditional habitat of Siamese crocodiles.

The proposed 109-megawatt dam would inundate about 20,000 hectares of land overall in Koh Kong province’s Cheay Areng valley, according to conservation groups, although an environmental impact assessment of the dam commissioned by the company suggested only 9,474 hectares would be flooded.

The US$327 million project was taken over by China’s Guodian Corporation after China Southern Power Grid dumped the plan in November, 2010, deeming it unfeasible.

In a letter sent to Hun Sen dated Monday, SRP legislator Son Chhay asks the premier to explain the status of the project and raised concerns that those tasked with clearing the reservoir would log far outside the designated area, mimicking the experience of previous dam projects.

“The situation at Tatay hydro dam area [in Koh Kong province] . . . is that the group of loggers used their right for logging inside the dam area to log outside the area, which devastated the natural forest, causing extreme concern,” the letter says.

Chinese Dam Project in Cambodia Raises Environmental Concerns

January 16, 2012
By SIMON MARKS
The International Herald Tribune (Paris, France)

Special Report: Business of Green

KAMPOT PROVINCE, CAMBODIA — Ever since she was a child, Bun Thavry and her family have ventured into the nearby hills above the Toek Chhou river in Kampot Province to chop down bamboo plants to weave into baskets.

But after the Chinese company Sinohydro, one of the world’s largest construction companies, started work on the 193-megawatt Kamchay Dam in 2007, access to the countryside surrounding this tranquil town has been restricted. Mrs. Thavry’s husband, Kim Sopha, 39, like hundreds of others in nearby villages, must now travel about 10 kilometers, or 6 miles, beyond the dam site to collect the bamboo.

“Before, all you needed was a bicycle and a knife,” Mrs. Thavry, a 32-year-old mother of two, said recently as she perched on a small stool outside her wooden home near the riverbank. “But it’s completely different now.”

China's no to signing water sharing pact imperils India

Jun 19, 2011
Abantika GhoshAbantika Ghosh, TNN
The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The recent scare about China diverting the course of the Brahmaputra River is not the first time that India has expressed concerns about its Communist neighbour's hydel projects, and is unlikely to be the last.

Beijing not only has a host of projects lined up on the Brahmaputra River — 24 according to some reports — but has also planned at least five, which have a cumulative power generation capacity of about 2,000 mw, for the Arun River (Bamchu) that is called Kosi when it enters India.

New Delhi isn't the only country voicing these concerns as China's abhorrence of any proposal to share natural resources has caused consternation in other south-east Asian nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos as well. Beijing is planning to build three more mega dams on the downstream Mekong River in addition six existing ones. Mekong flows these lower riparian states.

China and the Cascading Geopolitics of Lower Mekong Dams

Philip Hirsch
The Asia Pacific Journal, Japan Focus

Much has been written on the downstream impact of China’s dams on the Lancang-Mekong River, which flows through or along the borders of five other countries after exiting China. Most of the discussion relates to the hydrological impact of impounding water in the eight dams along the mainstream Lancang Jiang in Yunnan Province. Particular concern surrounds the recently completed Xiaowan Dam and the recently approved construction of the Nuozhadu Dam, each of which is of a scale to impound quantities of water that can affect river hydrology throughout the basin. The Lancang Cascade, as it is termed, has caused considerable controversy in downstream countries, most notably during the 2008 floods and the 2010 drought. Both the floods and the droughts were blamed by many in Thailand, and some in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, on China’s actions. Recent articles on the downstream implications of altered river hydrology and the need for China to be less disingenuous in its public relations over the issue show the confluence of river hydrology and geopolitics in an international river basin such as the Lancang-Mekong.

The Lancang Dams have major implications for downstream hydrology, with the potential to exacerbate or ameliorate both floods and droughts and to impact on fisheries and other bases for the livelihoods of downstream users of the river. Cumulatively, they have the potential to increase dry season flows by 30 to 50 per cent in the reach of the Mekong River above the Lao capital Vientiane. However, there are also more indirect implications of the Lancang dams that receive less attention despite having a bearing on highly controversial current projects such as the proposed Xayabouri Dam in Laos.

China's dams threaten livelihoods [-The DAMNED Chinese dams]

Tuesday April 26, 2011
By DENIS D. GRAY
AP

The damming of every major river flowing from the Tibetan plateau will trigger natural disasters, degrade fragile ecologies and divert vital water supplies.

THE wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in north-east India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock.

No one knows exactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighbouring China.

“We don’t trust the Chinese,” says fisherman Akshay Sarkar at the resettlement site where he has lived since the 2000 flood. “They gave us no warning. They may do it again.”

Chinese Dams Challenge Western Development Monopoly

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jan 10, 2011 (IPS) - A steady rise of new dams in Cambodia is becoming a platform for the country’s prime minister to showcase where the Southeast Asian kingdom’s ties with China - a late arrival among Cambodia’s foreign aid and development partners - is headed.

"The hydropower dam is just one of the numerous achievements under the cooperation between Cambodia and China," Premier Hun Sen said in December at a ceremony in a remote South-western province of the country where the 338 megawatt Russei Chrum Krom hydropower dam is being built.

This 500-million-U.S.-dollar dam - being built by the Huadian Corp., one of China’s biggest state-owned power companies - is the largest of five Chinese dams under construction in energy-poor Cambodia, where only a fifth of the population of nearly 14.5 million have access to electricity.

Chinese companies are already carrying out feasibility studies for four more dams to be built, say environmentalists and grassroots activists worried about what such future hydropower projects portend.

"China plays a very important role in investment and development in Cambodia. But it should take account of the importance of EIAs [environmental impact assessments] and SIAs [social impact assessments]," Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said during a telephone interview from Phnom Penh, where his grassroots network for local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is based. "At times the EIA process is not open to the public and there is little time to comment," Ath told IPS.

Cambodian PM insists Chinese dam not be blamed for low Mekong level [-Hun Xen: The jack of all trades, expert of none]

November 18, 2010
Xinhua

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Wednesday that disasters or floods are not caused by Chinese dams, but due to the global climate change.

"Floods in Takhmao district and Phnom Penh, is it caused by the hydro-power dam Storms in Thailand? is it caused by the hydro power? Water rises and drops along the Mekong river, is it caused by the hydropower?" asked Hun Sen in response to the question from a reporter in a press conference.

The question is about hydro power dams in China that is threatening the low Mekong River and a concern about recent approval in principle of the Cambodia to a Vietnamese firm to construct a hydro power dam along Mekong River.

The press conference was held after the conclusion of a series summits held among the heads of government of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

Hun Sen said that in 1998, the Mekong river water was only 7.5 meters high, the lowest level of water, at that time the Chinese dams were not built, but in 2000, the water in the river in front of the Royal Palace rose to more than 12 meters that threatened the flood in Phnom Penh.

"But this year the water is small, is the issue caused by the hydro power?" Hun Sen asked, adding that "it is not like that you have to think, this irregular rainfall maybe caused by the climate change in the world."

He said that for Mekong river and other rivers, less or more water is dependent on rainfall.

"I do not defend China and I also do not defend Laos that built hydro power dam, I also do not defend the hydro power dam that the Cambodian government allowed to build," the premier stressed. "But you should think when strong rains come, it cause floods, when no rain, it is draught."

China's dams a threat to Cambodia

September 10, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

In Cambodia, where the damming of the Mekong River is being blamed for drought conditions in parts of the country, where irrigation water has dried up.

There's also pressure on fish stocks, with shortages leading to steadily rising prices. Warnings about the downstream impact of dams, particularly those built by China, have been growing and now there are calls for ASEAN a body frequently criticised for IN-action to take a stand. The issue was aired as part of two days of talks in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, organised by the Melbourne University-based Asialink which was also an opportunity to assess Cambodia's overall progress.

Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Professor Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister; Ambassador Pou Sothirak, Cambodian diplomat

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

MOTTRAM: Though still deeply impoverished, Cambodia has without doubt been transformed from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, through a difficult and volatile peace process and into a more hopeful future based on broadly democratic principles. Former Australian Foreign minister, Gareth Evans, was a key playing in the peace process.

EVANS: You do get a sense that things are coming together I mean the physical fabric of the place is impressive. I am back here now for the first time in eight or nine years and you can sense the difference, the number of high rise buildings, just the sense of prosperity that's out there and the growth rates reflect that in terms of the formal statistics.

MOTTRAM: Gareth Evans and Australia more broadly are held in genuine affection in Cambodia for their efforts in pulling the country from its dark past. And Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen reflected that at the formal, public opening of the Asialink Conversations.

HUN SEN: I would like to extend a particular heartfelt welcome back to Cambodia to the honorable Professor Gareth Evans.

MOTTRAM: But while Gareth Evans is optimistic for Cambodia, assessing that the proverbial glass is probably more than half full, he also acknowledges there's a way to go on governance, on human rights .. and centrally, on the judiciary.

EVANS: Just about everyone acknowledges that that is the totally unfinished business, that it is basically not reliably independent. Take your life in your hands if you go to the judiciary, to the courts and this is not something that encourages either confidence by ordinary Cambodians in the quality of their own governance or of course it doesn't do much to encourage investor confidence in the country.

MOTTRAM: But economic pressures are seen by Professor Evans and other observers as playing a key role in pressing Hun Sen's government to continue reforms. There's also the associated professionalisation of the population. And for all the criticisisms of his big man style of government, there is broad acknowledgement that Hun Sen understands that change has to come. He appears to harness anyone with an exceptional level of expertise to an advisory role. And he has moved on some problem areas, closing down gambling operations and enacting anti-corruption measures, even if enforcement is incomplete.

Still some of the particular problems are immense. Take the headline issue of land grabs. Ambassador Pou Sothirak is former humanitarian co-ordinator on the Thai-Cambodia border and a former MP and minister in the Cambodian government, who's now on leave from an advisory position to Prime Minister Hun Sen, for a stint at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.

SOTHIRAK: First of all it's the exploitation by powerful people and rich business men who go out and buy off land from the poorer one. I just hope that the poor can have their own land title because land is very important. It is known to be a wealth creation asset for the poor and if one want to see Cambodia move away from poverty, land issues need to be settled for the sake of the poor.

MOTTRAM: But even if Cambodia's largely rural poor get land title and are rescued from land grabs, their fate could lie elsewhere .. to be precise in China, whose dam building activities on the upper Mekong River to quench is great thirst for energy have an almost permanent alarm ringing in downstream countries like Cambodia.

Ambassador Sothirak again.

SOTHIRAK: Many of the Cambodian farmers they also live on fishing and the price of fish lately have gone up two, three times because of fish species under threat now because of this dam building and some places are now dried up so no water for irrigation so the crop cannot survive. So this effect we have now seen it happening in Cambodia. So my view about how to go about if one country want to do an exploitation on common natural resources, one country have to ensure that this type of development will not have drastic effects on the environment on the one hand and on the livelihood on the other hand.

MOTTRAM: Others at the Asialink Conversations called for ASEAN to take a stand, though it's reputation for more talk than action precedes it.

Ambassador Sothirak puts it this way.

SOTHIRAK: Can China live without Mekong River? In my opinion China can live without Mekong River. But if you ask this same question for the Cambodian I don't think we can live without the Mekong River.

Mekong in danger of soon becoming 'Chinese river'

Mekong Tipping Point from Henry L. Stimson Center on Vimeo.

August 13, 2010
DPA

Plans to build hydropower dams on the upper Mekong will turn Southeast Asia's longest waterway into a "Chinese river", the regional head of the US-based Stimson Centre has warned.

China has already built four hydropower dams on the upper Mekong River in Yunnan province and plans another four, despite the unknown impact on downstream nations Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam.

"Unless all six countries get together and work through this issue, the likelihood is this river will become a Chinese river," said Richard Cronin, who heads the Southeast programme of the Stimson Centre, a US-based think tank that focuses on global security issues.

The centre recently published a paper titled Mekong Tipping Point that highlights the human security and political instability threats posed by the four planned hydropower stations in China and 11 on the lower Mekong.

Past efforts to build hydropower dams were hampered by the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s, and thereafter by multilateral bickering.

China, however, has built a cascade of dams on the upper reaches of the river, primarily for electricity generation.

"Ideally, China should stop with the four dams it has built, operate them with transparency, and the dams should not be built on the lower Mekong," Cronin said.

He warned that if China's cascade of dams was built, they could halt up to 70 per cent of the silt that is normally carried by the river to the lower Mekong countries, depriving them of nutrients.

Dams built on the lower Mekong would have an even greater impact on food security.

The Mekong, which flows from the Tibetan Plateau to southern Vietnam, rivals the Amazon in terms of the quantity of fish and aquaculture, and feeds and employs up to 60 million people in the region.

Dams in southern Laos and Cambodia would have an immediate impact on the migratory patterns of fisheries, the study warned.

China's upstream dams became a political issue earlier this year, when the entire region suffered a severe drought. Several non-governmental organisations blamed China for exacerbating the drought by controlling the river's flow.

China refuted the accusations, providing data on its dams' intake and outflow during the period, but it has yet to devise a transparent system by which Southeast Asia is kept appraised of its upriver activities.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Chinese Dams Expose Fault Line in Mekong Region

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 9 (IPS) - A heated debate about the future of the Mekong River at a media conference in this northern Thai city exposed a fault line triggered by the regional giant China’s plans to build a cascade of dams on the upper stretches of South-east Asia’s largest waterway.

"The most important issue for people who live along the banks (of the lower stretches) of the Mekong are the dams and how these affect them," said Pipope Pantichpakdi, a Thai filmmaker who made the documentary ‘Mekong: The Untamed’. "They cannot see the river as a pretty sight."

A recent documentary film about the Mekong made by Chinese filmmakers overlooked some serious issues, he added during a session on contrasting perspectives of the river at the Mekong Media Forum. "There was nothing about a lot of villages disappearing, that there are floods and the doubts people have about the Chinese dams."

His views were echoed by Manote Tripathi, the scriptwriter of the hour-long Thai film. "A number of countries are becoming aware of the consequences of the mega-projects," he told some 200 participants at the forum, which runs from Dec. 9-12 in this northern city of Thailand.

A Chinese journalist on the panel conceded that the planned development targeting the Mekong would provoke a range of responses. "It is natural that different people will have different perspectives on similar issues," said Zhu Yan, a senior editor at the national broadcaster China Central Television. "In China there is a debate (around the question) of environment or dams."

Tan Keng Ooi, a journalist based in Laos, confirmed that the feelings of the countries in the Mekong River Basin towards China were shared. He said Laos was already feeling the impact of the Chinese dams due to sudden fluctuations of the water level near the capital Vientiane, he raged.

Similar sentiments from the people in Vietnam were captured in the film ‘Mekong: The Untamed’ screened to participants at the forum organised by the Asia-Pacific branch of the Inter Press Service news agency and the Probe Media Foundation, a Manila-based media educator.

The Thai film narrates the journey of Suthichai Yoon, a leading Thai media personality, from the headwaters of the Mekong River in Tibet to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The question he seeks to answer through his travels is how the planned Chinese dams affect communities who live along the banks of the river.

"My Mekong journey goes to the heart of Asia’s complexities," says the narrator as he makes his way from China’s southern province of Yunnan to the north-eastern Thai town of Chiang Kong. The scenes he passes range from the raging waters of the Mekong and hills swathed with mist to riverside communities being torn apart by a building frenzy.

"I wonder if the Chinese realise what the people who are impacted by the dam feel?" Suthichai asks at one point.

A Thai activist interviewed on the banks of Mekong offers an answer. "There is no response from the Chinese government to the concerns we are expressing," says Pianporn Detees. "We don’t want the Mekong River to end up a silent river."

The undercurrent of resentment towards the Chinese dams that surfaces in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam hardly surprises Steve Van Beek, a seasoned adventurer who has journeyed down the Mekong four times and chronicled his discoveries in a series of books. "There is a fear of Chinese hegemony," he told IPS.

Chinese journalists themselves come in for a shock when they encounter anti-dam sentiments in the Mekong River Basin, he revealed. "They realise that all the stories they had been told about China pursuing its development plans in a spirit of brotherhood are not true."

The silence of policymakers in China to address the worries of the lower Mekong countries has a reason, he added. "Deep down among the policymakers there is an awareness of the tension. Otherwise, they could have opened up a dialogue with the affected communities."

The 4,880-kilometre-long river flows from the Tibetan plateau, through southern China, then passes Burma, before coursing into the Mekong Basin shared by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and empties out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam.

China has already built three of a planned nine cascade of dams in the upper Mekong to quench its thirst for more hydropower. They include the Manwan and Dachaoshan dams.

The impact of these dams has begun to affect the diet and livelihood of communities living along the lower Mekong. Irregular fluctuation of water levels during the dry season has damaged the river’s ecosystem and seen a drop in fish catch, which is a major source of income – an estimated two to three billion U.S. dollars annually – for the 60 million people living in the Mekong Basin.

The concerns of the communities in the basin have also been aired by a United Nations agency.

"Although the Mekong River Basin is not characterised either by water shortages or open conflicts, its water issues have attracted considerable attention due to the potential threats arising out of development pressures and transboundary issues," the United Nations Environmental Programme stated in a report released in June.

Among the potential sources of conflict is the "major dam-building programme in the upper reaches of the Mekong that China has embarked on," revealed the report, ‘Freshwater under Threat – South East Asia’. "Significant impacts in terms of changes in (water) flow patterns and sediment transport are likely."

Koh Kong dam to impact wildlife

Another dam – the Kamchay hydroelectric dam – under construction in Kampot province two weeks ago. (Photo by: MICHAEL HAYES)

Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Written by Mom Kunthear and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

Over 350 species, in addition to local residents, inhabit the proposed Kirirom III dam's flood zone, raising fears about the lasting social and environmental effects of the project

WITH construction slated to begin this month on the 18-megawatt Kirirom III hydropower dam in Koh Kong province, environmentalists and NGOs continue to voice concerns about the potential effects of the project on residents and wildlife near the project site.

The China Electric Power Technology Import and Export Corp (CETIC) will be in charge of building the US$40 million project, which is expected to take two-and-a-half years, according to an initial environmental and social impact assessment produced by the company last year.

The impact assessment states that the project will generate jobs for approximately 500 Cambodian and Chinese workers. But environmentalists and rights activists are concerned by the report's claims that 352 species of wildlife, in addition to 10 local families, will need to be resettled during its construction.

Seng Bunra, country director for Conservation International, said his organisation is worried whether the animals in question will be able to survive the construction of the dam.

"They will have to move to live in another place," he said. "Some animals cannot move because they need special shelters."

Tonn Kunthel, Mekong community rights project officer at the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said construction of the dam would harm the biodiversity of the Stung Pongrul River.

He also pointed to the potential effect on nearby residents, noting that roads built to the construction site could displace more than the 10 families mentioned in the impact assessment and that the project would limit villagers' access to the river.

Villager Mao Phorn, who lives near the projected dam site, said his livelihood depends on his ability to catch fish from the river.

"I believe that people are more concerned than happy about the scheme, with villagers fearing impacts on fish stocks and their land," he said.

Tonn Kunthel pointed to a November 2008 report published by the Rivers Coalition of Cambodia and the American Friends Service Committee that found the dam would cause deterioration in water quality, soil erosion and flooding.

The Before the Dam report predicted that the project would lead to "deterioration of the local environment systems that currently supply a range of natural resources to the local community" as well as a general "decline in the local quality of life".

The director of CETIC declined to answer questions about the dam.

Thuk Kroeun Vutha, an undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Environment, said officials are aware of the environmental and other threats the project poses.

"We are working on this problem because we see there are some points that will strongly impact the environment," he told the Post last week.

"If we see that it will impact the area too much, I don't know if we will stop it or not because we need to discuss with other ministries about how to resolve the issue."

Chinese-funded hydro-dams bring hope and fear to Cambodia

Cambodian children eat rice by candle-light during an electricity outage in Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Hydropower is held up as the beacon of hope for millions of electricity-starved Cambodians, with ten planned hydro-dams set to power up their homes for the first time.

But flicking the switch comes at a price as critics say the controversial deals made with mostly Chinese companies to build the dams will create further hardship for Cambodia's poor and ruin the environment.

For window-maker Dorn Seanghor, however, the prospect of working without being plunged into darkness is appealing. In the midst of Cambodia's building boom his business should be thriving, but he is constantly frustrated.

"There's usually a blackout for six to eight hours almost every day -- one time in the morning and again in the evening," he said at his shop in the capital, Phnom Penh.

"It disturbs my business. I use a generator when the power is cut, but the price of gasoline is very high now."

Still, Dorn Seanghor is one of the luckier ones. Four-fifths of Cambodians do not have access to any electricity.

Ten dams are set to begin churning between 2010 and 2019, and once they are all operational the government says they will generate 2,045 megawatts of power, serving all Cambodia's provinces.

Government officials say six of the dams will be funded by Chinese companies, but the US-based International Rivers Network warned in a January report that these Chinese investments could threaten some of Cambodia's most precious eco-systems.

"Poorly conceived hydropower development could irreparably damage (natural) resources," the report warned.

Groups have been particularly concerned about the looming affects of Kamchay Dam, under construction by Sinohydro Corporation in Bokor National Park and expected to flood 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of protected forest.

And now environmental groups say two more projects agreed in mid-June at a cost of more than one billion dollars -- Stung Tatay by China National Heavy Machinery Corporation and Russey Chrum Krom by Michelle Corporation -- have not been properly scrutinised.

Both will be located in the country's southwestern Cardamom Protected Forest, and about 1,600 hectares (3,953 acres) of woodland would have to be flooded or cleared to make way for the dams, the government has said.

This could destroy key animal habitats and upset the delicate eco-system.

"Cardamom is the last hot spot of conservation in Indochina," said Sam Chanthy, an environmental officer with advocacy group Forum on Cambodia.

Qian Hai, third secretary of the Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh, denied his country's companies would damage the environment.

"We just help Cambodia. All these projects are approved by the parliament and the government," he said.

Ith Praing, Cambodia's energy secretary, insisted the government conducted careful environmental studies for all the dams.

"Outsiders always raise environmental issues, but we need electricity. We must develop our country. We must use our resources rather than buying oil," he said.

Cambodia has begun to climb back from decades of civil unrest to emerge as one of the region's fastest-growing economies.

Economic growth has averaged 11 percent over the past three years, although 30 percent of the 14 million people still earn less than a dollar per day.

The government fears rocketing energy prices will scare away foreign direct investment.

"Every sector needs electric power. When we have electricity at a reasonable price, development will come along," said Ith Praing, adding the government forecasts that by 2030, 70 percent of Cambodian families will have electricity.

Opposition member of parliament Son Chhay, however, said the debate is not simply a case of economic development versus the environment.

Poor people could be forced from their land to make way for the mega-projects, crops could be destroyed, while the environment the rural poor depend upon may be wiped out, he told AFP.

"The government just closes its eyes and lets Chinese companies do things that will cause a lot of problems in the future," Son Chhay said.

"It will not resolve poverty in Cambodia. Cambodia will lose a lot without taking into consideration the environmental consequences."