Source - REDORBIT
August 1, 2006

Excerpt from report by William Boot published in English by Thailand-based Burmese publication Irrawaddy website on 1 August

Strange things are happening along the mighty Mekong , Southeast Asia 's longest river, which sustains 60 million people on its 2,610- mile (4,200-km) journey from Tibet to the Vietnamese coast.

The river's flow has begun fluctuating wildly as it courses through the borderlands of Thailand and Laos , washing away fertile farming land and scores of homes.

The cause is not global warming-induced weather change, nor glaciers melting in the Himalayas , but China 's steamrollering economic growth, say environment protection campaigners.

Chinese engineers are building eight hydroelectric dams along the Mekong in China , where it is called the Lancang, blasting away rocky rapids in order to tap the river's energy for electricity generation and transport.

These alarming developments are just a small segment of a multibillion-dollar region-wide effort to harness rivers, threatening to unleash enormous human and ecological problems which will far outweigh the benefits, say environmentalists. Tens of thousands of people - mostly ethnic minorities living in isolation - face forced displacement, and the ecological damage could be unprecedented, undermining food supplies.

Dams are planned or already under construction in southwest China , Laos and Burma .

China 's ethnically diverse Yunnan Province , part of which is listed by UNESCO as a huge World Heritage Site for its ecological uniqueness, has the biggest potential in East Asia for hydroelectric power generation. Chinese scientists have calculated that the province could provide more than 25 per cent of the country's total hydropower. In addition to the Mekong projects, up to 13 more dams are on the drawing board in Yunnan , along the Salween , or Nu as it's called by the Chinese. [passage omitted]

China says its dams will benefit everyone, from the 43 million inhabitants of its Yunnan Province , who presumably want to enjoy 21st century electric-powered comforts like their richer fellow citizens in Shanghai or Guangzhou , to the downstream Mekong dwellers who will be spared seasonal flooding. [passage omitted]

Across much of mainland Southeast Asia and China , the need for energy to fuel economic growth is leading to a rash of hydro dams. More than 30 are planned or under construction in China , Laos and Burma . They will necessitate the uprooting of countless numbers of people.

These dams - which collectively could generate well over 100,000 MW, or enough electricity to power four countries the size of Thailand - are being built in countries where people cannot effectively object.

Thailand has solved the problem of effective public protest against unpopular dams by using its neighbours in Laos and Burma as proxies to supply hydroelectric power.

In China 's Yunnan Province alone, 50,000 mostly ethnic Shan, Nu, Bai and Lisu face being evicted from their homes and land to make way for dam flood waters, estimates the US-based International Rivers Network campaign organization. [passage omitted]

The Hatgyi project [on the Salween River in Burma], in Karen territory where the Burmese military have been violently evicting villagers and burning their homes, is shrouded in secrecy - as are plans to build another three or four dams also on the Salween inside Burma.

Hatgyi is the biggest single economic deal involving Burma , Thailand and China , whose state-controlled Sinohydro Corporation will be the main construction contractor. Again, Thailand will get most of the electricity generated.

China 's state-run media hailed the Hatgyi deal. The government- controlled Xinhua news agency quoted an official saying the project is "strategically important in terms of the development of regional economies, business ties and international relationships".

That is not a view shared by Zao Noam, a Chiang Mai-based political ecologist, who told The Irrawaddy: "These dams are nothing more than another advanced stage of war by the Burmese dictatorship, only this time bringing Thai and Chinese governments into the war zone, and state authorities profiting immensely. [passage omitted]

But if the proposed 13 dams go ahead on the Salween in China , the dams on the river in Burma could be stillborn for the simple reason that there may not be enough water flowing through to drive much more than a few windmills.

The so-called cascade system to build dams along the Chinese Salween in Yunnan aims to capture the river's power as it tumbles through gorges set in one of the world's last great undamaged areas of rich biodiversity. A large area of the terrain has only recently been designated a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO is so alarmed by the threat of the dams that it sent an investigation team to check in April this year. Despite assurances from the Beijing central government that plans are on hold pending a full environmental impact study, the investigators were dismayed by what they saw happening and issued a statement expressing "gravest concerns".

The issue is so sensitive that a German journalist working for Die Zeit newspaper was arrested briefly in Yunnan last month and made to hand over to police notes he made while trying to interview people about the dams.

UNESCO's citation designating the Yunnan heritage site says: "It is the area of richest biodiversity in China and may be the most biologically diverse temperate region on earth. As the last remaining stronghold for an extensive range of rare and endangered plants and animals, the site is of outstanding universal value."

The UN body was meeting to discuss the dams issue towards the end of July, but few observers believe China will leave the region intact, whatever Beijing is saying now. China is desperate for energy to continue driving its huge economy forward. Central planners in Beijing are under pressure to reduce the country's use of coal, which is polluting the air and land with unprecedented levels of sulphur dioxide, and is blamed by the World Health Organization for causing up to 400,000 premature deaths a year.

"Clean" hydroelectric dams offer Beijing a solution - at a huge social and environmental cost.

"The dams would displace 50,000 people, and indirectly affect the livelihoods of millions living downstream in China , Burma and Thailand ," said the International Rivers Network's campaigns director Aviva Imhof.

Her estimate could be very conservative. Yunnan 's Resettlement and Development Bureau was quoted in the Kunming Evening Daily in May forecasting that "starting from this year Yunnan Province will have to move on average 40,000 people every year to pave the way for hydropower development" involving 33 dams up to 2020. [passage omitted]

(c) 2006 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

 

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