Opponents of Mekong dams campaign in Australia

Friday, 12/02/2010
ABC Radio Australia

Environmental activists from Thailand are in Australia to campaign against 11 new dams along the Mekong River.

In the region south of China, 60 million people rely on the Mekong River in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Oxfam Australia is assisting in the campaign.

Oxfam's Michael Simon says the proposed hydropower dams will block fish migration and flood rice paddies.

"Land is already extremely hard sought after, for plantations, logging, and for these people to be relocated away from the river, away from their livelihoods," he says.

"It's a well known global norm that people who are forced to resettle are pushed further into poverty."

Oxfam has sponsored a photo exhibition in Canbera and Melbourne, featuring the diversity of life on the Mekong.

It's on display at the High Court in Canberra until February 16, then at the State Library of Victoria.

Mekong River dams a serious threat to Vietnam [-VN gets a taste of its dams on the Sesan River?]

Monday, June 22, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

With all upstream countries – China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia planning major dams on the Mekong River, Vietnam faces imminent threats to its ecology, food security and livelihoods of its people, an expert has warned.

Just Laos, Thailand and Cambodia are planning eleven big hydropower dams on mainstream Mekong River, which will limit the deposit of silt, acidify agricultural land, and decimate upstream fish stocks, affecting hundreds of thousands of fishermen and their households, said Ngo Xuan Quang of the Vietnam’s Institute of Tropical Biology.

Speaking to Thanh Nien at the launching ceremony of the “Save the Mekong” campaign in Bangkok on Thursday, Quang said even if no dam was planned on the Vietnam stretch of the Mekong River, the country would be very vulnerable to the impacts of upstream dams.

In Vietnam, the Mekong is known as the Cuu Long River as it flows through the southwestern region and joins the sea.

When the river waters are blocked upstream, sea water will further encroach the Mekong Delta, and exacerbate problems caused by rising sea levels because of climate change.

The dams will retain the silt, leaving areas deprived of the river’s flow susceptible to land erosion and landslides, he added.

The Mekong River flows through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before ending its journey in Vietnam.

River cry

On Thursday, the Save the Mekong coalition had handed over a petition to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to express concern regarding plans to build eleven hydropower dams on the Mekong River’s lower mainstream.

The coalition is a network of non-government organizations, community groups, academics, journalists, artists, fishers, farmers and ordinary people from within the Mekong countries and internationally.

Of the 11 dams planned by the three lower mainstream countries, seven are in Laos, two in Cambodia, and two on the Thai-Lao border.

Building dams on the river’s mainstream will block major fish migrations that accounts for up to 70 percent of the nation’s commercial catch, the petition said.

They will also disrupt the vitally important river, placing at risk the livelihoods of millions of people who depend upon it for their food security and incomes, it added.

The Mekong River is host to the world’s largest inland fisheries. The commercial fish catch is currently worth US$3 billion annually, the petition pointed out.

Not only are these fisheries an important source of income for local fishers, which include many of the region’s poorest people, but they are also vital in ensuring regional food security. Between half and four-fifths of the animal protein consumed by the 60 million people in the lower Mekong basin come from the river’s fisheries, it said.

The undammed Mekong River has an extraordinary aquatic biodiversity, second only to the Amazon. Building mainstream dams would push the endangered species such as the Irrawaddy Dolphin, the Mekong Giant Catfish, and countless other migratory fish species to the brink of extinction, international experts have said, adding losing this ecological wealth would be a tragedy of global proportions.

The petition, which collects public signatures at http://tinyurl.com/Save-the-Mekong, also said China’s dam construction on the Upper Mekong mainstream (Lancang) has already caused serious environmental problems in downstream Myanmar, northern Thailand, and northern Laos.

Declining fish stocks and unpredictable water levels have made life more difficult for downstream communities, pointing toward the damage that mainstream dams will inflict, it added.

The Save the Mekong coalition thus urges the Mekong governments to keep the Mekong flowing freely to save this critical source of food, income and life for present and future generations. It appeals to people from all walks of life around the world to join the effort to save the river.

This petition has thus far been signed by 16,380 people from within the Mekong Region and around the world.

Since March, Save the Mekong has been collecting signed postcards from people in the Mekong countries and around the world, urging the region’s political leaders to keep the Mekong flowing freely as a precious source of food, income and life for present and future generations.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Opposition to Mekong Dams Overflows at Meet

Dam-affected residents at Mekong meet. (Credit:Lynette Lee Corporal/IPS)

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Nov 16 (IPS) - In what looked like a blitzkrieg rally, about a dozen hand-held 'No Dams' signs appeared out of nowhere in the packed conference hall at a public forum here on the construction of dams in the Mekong region.

This happened while Sompong Viengchan, from the north-eastern Thai province of Ubon Ratchathani, was delivering an impassioned speech on the negative impact of dams on the lives of residents along the Mekong River and its tributaries.

"I will not give up and I will fight to the end. My family has lived along the river for generations. If you want to build dams, do it in your own house!" she told the more than 200 participants at the Mekong Public Forum on mainstream dams, held here Nov.12-13.

"We've been fishing there for generations and lived our lives not dependent on the government. Now we can’t even find enough fish for our families," added Sompong, who was displaced by the construction of the Pak Mun dam. For 20 years, she had been protesting plans to build the dam along the Mun river, a Mekong tributary, as well as its destruction of fisheries after its completion in 1994.

Her statement echoed the sentiments here of other representatives of communities among the six Mekong countries that have been affected by dams on the Mekong’s tributaries, or fluctuations in river flows in the last few years.

The 4,880-kilometre Mekong River starts from the Tibetan plateau in China, then flows through Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, before spilling out into the South China Sea through the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

Over two days here, community groups took turns citing the problems brought about by dam projects and the questions that hover over many similar projects now being planned for the Mekong, the world’s 10th longest river.

There are different estimates of the number of dams planned for the Mekong region. But among those most closely watched are hydropower projects in Laos, which is keen on using income from these resources for its development. The country has six big dams in operation, seven under construction and 12 more in the pipeline, according to a report by the advocacy group International Rivers, in September.

The proposal to build the Sambor hydropower project in north-eastern province of Kratie prompted Yoth Theary Cambodia's Community Economic Development, to question the government's motive for pushing this dam project.

"We found out that 40 percent of the energy that will be generated by this dam will be used within the country and 60 percent will be exported. My question is where will the income from the 60 percent go -- to the investor or to the country?" asked Yoth Theary.

He maintained that the demand for energy within the country is much less than the desire to sell energy.

For China's Zhang Chun Shan, it was quite upsetting to hear about the problems that downstream communities say they are experiencing because of dams that China built on its stretch of the Mekong River, which it calls the Lancang.

China has three dams on the Mekong mainstream -- the Manwan dam completed in 1995, the Dachaoshan and the Jinghong one -- and a fourth is under construction.

"I hope in the future we will come back to a period where people have (an abundance of) fish, rice, water. It is difficult but it is our goal and mission," he said.

Pham Quang Tu from the Consultancy on Development-Hanoi publicly apologised to Cambodians "for the negative impact" caused by Vietnamese dams, specifically the one billion US dollar Yali Falls hydroelectric dam in central Vietnam.

In 1999 and 2000, the release of water from the Yali dam across the border from north-eastern Cambodia caused the deaths of some 25 people, media reports said. Local communities reported the destruction of fisheries and farms, floods and water contamination.

This has been a sore issue between the two neighbouring countries, one that resulted in talks to get early notification of water releases across the border and encouraged residents in affected Cambodian areas to form a network to make their situation known.

"We are committed to finding solutions to this problem and let us work together because this has gone beyond borders," Tu said. He suggested that Mekong countries share information about their activities that affect the river, stressing the importance of having a "strategic assessment for hydropower in the region".

"This region is a big seller of electricity, but a very small buyer. Everybody wants to be the seller, but who will do the buying?" he asked.

While it may sound contradictory, he said that it is important for civil society to both "confront and cooperate with the government". It should present the government with good evidence -- including the practical experiences of communities about the dams’ negative impact, he added.

As for Laos, "many people are still confused by the impact of the dams," explained Boumtiem Keophouvong of Laos' Global Association for People and Environment. "Not many people are interested in collecting more information about dams because of the lack of interest in environmental issues."

He added that non-government groups usually do not want to get involved in the dam issue due to concern that this could "scare away investors".

For his part, Burmese environmental activist Sai Sai noted the big gap between the government, dam builders and local communities. Policymakers usually present a rosy picture of sustainable development projects, he said. For many locals, however, these are impossible to implement.

Citing as an example the Lawpita hydropower station, Sai said: "They said the dam will directly benefit the people. After the dam was built, the electricity went straight to the capital city of Rangoon and not in the Karenni state."

For Sai, the dam project also symbolised the persecution of the Karenni people especially since the Lawpita dam was located in a conflict area. Some 100,000 people were reportedly directly affected by the dam, he told the forum.

At the same time, a lot of the frustration of the community representatives from the six countries was directed at the Vientiane-based Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental organisation tasked to ensure the sustainable use and management of water and related resources in the lower Mekong basin.

At the Mekong public forum, critics had varied accusations of the MRC, calling it weak and ineffective to virtually being a supporter of governments and private developers bent on pursuing dam projects.

"We'd like to ask them to expand their role and help facilitate in bringing the government and local communities together, to dialogue and find solutions together," said Tu.

MRC chief executive office Jeremy Bird explained that clearly there was a "resurgence" in hydropower plans along the Mekong River, but that the commission was not a supra-governmental or enforcement agency.

It also consists of member governments -- the lower Mekong countries of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam -- to whom it reports to, he explained. At the same tine, Bird said the MRC is committed to carrying out its tasks of reviewing plans for hydropower development under its notification and review process with a view to "sustainable hydropower development".

In September, the commission took the major step of organising in Vientiane a dialogue with different players in the hydropower picture -- governments, hydropower companies, civil society -- in order to open venues for discussing the testy issue of dams along the Mekong.

But Theary added: "The MRC's role should be changed to reflect more support to the people. If civil society is given a chance to engage the MRC more, then we will have a stronger voice, which will hopefully affect any government decision in the future."

Sompong begged the MRC to "listen to the people".

Said Zhang: "If we have good friendship (among communities in different Mekong countries), we can help each other and promote sustainable development. But if we're in a situation where we are constantly in conflict, development is hard to achieve".