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VOICES FROM MEKONG:
Dams upriver hurting people living downstream
ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT
Bangkok Post. 14 November 2008.
When 42-year-old Zhang Chun Shan, a Chinese farmer-cum-activist, told
a public forum in Bangkok this week that he was unaware of the
negative impact his great nation's hydropower projects have caused to
neighbouring countries downstream, a hundred participants understood
him.
"I feel sorry for you; the downstream communities have problems with
their fisheries and floods [after the dam construction] but we
upstream people face the problems of soil erosion and villagers'
relocation," said Mr Zhang, director of Lijiang City Environmental
Volunteer Organisation.
The forum, entitled "Mekong Mainstream Dams: Voices Across Borders"
was held last week at Chulalongkorn University.
How could the Chinese people know of the suffering of people in other
countries? They do not even know about the hardships of their
compatriots. "Because the local and central governments never tell
anyone how we - communities affected by dams - are suffering," mourned
Mr Zhang, who comes from Yunnan province.
Niwat Roykeow, a former headmaster of Chiang Khong School in Chiang
Rai province, accused the Chinese dams - Manwan, Dachaoshan and
Jinghong - of causing the heaviest floods in Chiang Saen in four
decades last August.
"At least three districts have yet to recoup the financial loss of 85
million baht, not to mention the heartbreak of being fooled by
authorities that dams help prevent flooding, serve agriculture and
produce electricity," said the 47-year-old Niwat.
He called on China to take responsibility for the suffering of the
downstream people and urged the lower-Mekong governments to be more
collaborative with their own people in seeking compensation from the
upstream nation.
China expert Vorasakdi Mahatdhanobol from Chulalongkorn University
said that if China wants to rise gracefully and in a sustainable
manner, Beijing needs to conduct an impartial study of its dams'
impact on the riparian countries and release it publicly.
But the Mekong River Commission's (MRC) chief executive officer Jeremy
Bird argued that the MRC's own study showed that the Chinese dams did
not contribute to the flood; it was a natural event.
Montha Achariyakul, a community organiser in Bo Keo, Pongsali and
Luang Prabang in Laos, said the Lao people did not believe rainfall
was the cause.
"Headmen in northern Lao provinces warned their villagers that China
would release more water from their dams. Despite the alert, a
thousand households and their rice and corn fields were damaged," said
Ms Montha.
Montree Chantawong, from Thai People's Network for Mekong, added that
the MRC River Monitoring website still showed a "green sign" for
Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong during the week of August 11-14 even
though the area was inundated at that time.
The two-day seminar was not meant to talk about the already-built dams
or to point the finger at any particular agency, but to raise
awareness and plead for policy-makers at all levels, national and
regional, and among international organisations as well as the private
sector, to pay more attention to the voices of the people living along
the river.
Participants were trying to forge a more concrete solidarity in order
to hold future projects accountable to the people. Those projects are
now at their doorstep.
Over the next few years, Laos is said to be constructing at least
seven dams with a total electricity generating capacity of 7,470
megawatts, while another two Thai-Lao projects will see a total of
3,409mw dams. Cambodia will have a 980mw dam in Stung Treng and
another 2,600mw dam in Sambor.
Investors from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam are
reportedly involved in the projects at Pak Beng, Luang Prabang,
Xayaburi, Xanakham, Lat Sua, Don Sahong in Laos, and at Pak Chom and
Ban Koum along the Thai-Lao border, and two provinces in Cambodia.
The seminar also saw a strong argument regarding the impact on fish
stocks in the world's seventh largest river, if more dams were to be
built mid- and downstream of the Mekong.
"The issue is not about what will happen to the fish, but to the
people whose livelihood relies heavily on fishery along this river,"
said Chris Barlow, from the MRC Fisheries Programme.
The Mekong has the world's largest inland fishery with 1.5-3 million
tonnes a year. In 2000 it was 2.6 million tonnes, said Mr Barlow,
adding that the real fishery economy was estimated at US$2-3,000
million per annum.
The MRC fish expert noted that reservoir fisheries could not
compensate for lost river fisheries and aquaculture could not be a
full replacement for captured fishery due to the added costs and
different beneficiaries.
Professor Philip Hirsch from the Australian Mekong Resource Centre
said that unless the 1995 agreement that created the MRC was revised
to include civil society voices and concerns into the government-
dominated process, future relations between the MRC and civil society
would remain an unfruitful dispute.
Apart from the agreement amendment, the colossal task is to
accommodate China's entry into the sub-regional body, noted Mr Hirsch.
So the MRC, NGOs and other players needed to find ways to overcome the
lack of meaningful engagement that has marked the past 13 years, he
said.
Jonathan Conford of Oxfam Australia, took the Asian Development Bank
to task for failing to live up to its pledges of poverty alleviation,
environmental conservation and sustainability.
At the ADB's annual meeting early this year, president Haruhido Kuroda
listed as priorities in the ADB's new long-term strategic commitment,
more of the same agenda - infrastructure development, regional
integration, private facilitation - all under the banner of inclusive
growth, said Mr Conford.
But the weight of accumulating evidence in the Mekong Region, he said,
is pointing to the need for a fundamental rethink of the GMS
orthodoxies around infrastructure, growth and poverty alleviation.
"Sixteen years of accelerated infrastructure development and natural
resource extraction have led to irrevocable damage to the region's
ecological systems and hugely growing disparities between the rich and
the poor and between ethnic groups," the Australian activist said.
Dr Sombath Somporn, the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay award recipient for
community leadership, said Laos may consider itself as a battery of
the region by supplying electricity to Southeast Asia, but for how
long can it sustain this?
"We need to re-educate the young people that water and light are
interlinked; if we use water unwisely or energy unwisely we will have
none left. We should not consume till everything depletes."
Dr Sombath also called for more corporate responsibility in
implementing hydropower projects.
"Shareholders and board members of concerned agencies including the
Mekong River Commission, and the Asian Development Bank should be held
accountable to their noble pledges to fight against climate change.
Stopping building or supporting construction of the non-EIA-checked
dams is one way to help prevent global warming," he said.
He suggested that maybe it was time for ecological degradation to be
accounted into the monetary cost of carrying out a project. |
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