VIENTIANE (UCAN): The government of Laos shrugged off concerns voiced by environmentalists over the negative ecological and livelihood impact of dams on the Mekong River and is pressing ahead with the construction of yet another large hydroelectric dam, a 1,400-megawatt facility in Luang Prabang province. It will be the country’s largest.
Millions of farmers and fishermen depend on the Mekong for their livelihoods. Experts have warned that continued construction of dams is likely to deal a blow to their traditional way of life along the river that makes its way from China to Vietnam through four other nations.
Hydroelectric dams constructed by China and Laos in recent years have irreversibly changed the flow of the iconic river downstream, triggering the prospects of an environmental catastrophe.
Laos completed two dams on the Mekong last year, including the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi Dam, a controversial project on the lower Mekong that has been slammed by environmentalists.
The impoverished nation’s government sees hydropower as a key part of economic development and hopes to export around 20,000 megawatts of electricity to its wealthier neighbours, China and Thailand by 2030.
Yet Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam have all raised concerns about the planned new dam, calling for a six-month consultation process to evaluate its environmental impact.
Last year the Mekong’s water levels dropped to historic lows and its colour changed from its normal brown to light blue as the amount of ecologically vital sediments diminished in the water (Sunday Examiner, June 7).
Yet the Lao and Chinese governments have dismissed environmental concerns, attributing the changes to droughts.
Environmentalists say that Laos has been building its dams without proper consultation.
“(There has been no) meaningful debate about impacts or problems that may arise from these hydropower projects,” Pianporn Deetes, a Thai environmentalist, said
Deetes ,who works for International Rivers, a non-profit organisation, said, “So the questions raised by people, NGOs (non-government organisations) and governments have never received a proper reply.”
Save the Mekong, a coalition of NGOs and experts, has called on Laos to scrap its latest dam project saying the environmental harm would far outweigh any economic benefits in the Lower Mekong Basin.
“Now is the time to cancel the Mekong mainstream dams permanently and prioritise sustainable and equitable energy options and pathways that respect the rights of communities,” the group said in June.
The worst-affected victims of rampant dam construction by Laos and China, which has built several large dams upriver and is planning several more, are economically disadvantaged communities, including ethnic minorities, along the 4,350-kilometre river, which originates in the Tibetan highlands.
As the reservoirs of the dams upriver hoard river water upstream, farming and fishing communities downstream experience increasingly severe water shortages, especially during the dry season and prolonged droughts.
Climate change is exacerbating the problem.
“Thailand and other countries in the region are bracing for serious water shortages over the next several months, while Vietnam faces the greatest threat in the coming years as lower water levels and sediment flow in the Mekong combine with rising sea levels and salination that will devastate its vast, agriculturally rich Mekong River delta,” the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in the United States, explains in a report.
Some 100 million people in six nations rely directly on the Mekong. Yet in the past decade alone, an estimated 1.7 million people have left the Mekong Delta in Vietnam largely as a result of increased poverty and diminishing economic prospects owing to a changing environment.
In addition, experts warn, the storied biodiversity of the Mekong is also at grave risk, with many of the river’s more than 850 species of fish facing increased threats.
