MEKONG RIVER NAVIGATION

First phase of clearance over, no more blasting approved.
The first phase of work to open the Mekong river to commercial shipping with China has been completed, and work for the season would end, a senior
official said.
Sub-Lt Preecha Phetwong, secretary of the Joint Committee on Coordination of Commercial Navigation on the Lancang-Mekong river, said blasting of the
Khai rapids on the Burmese-Lao border and the installation of 77 navigational aids on a stretch of the river from China's Yunnan province to Chiang Khong district in Chiang Rai province was complete.
The Khon Pi Luang rapids in Chiang Khong is the only remaining white-water in Thailand still marked for blasting. Other reef clearance was suspended
pending agreement on border demarcation with Laos.
Sub-Lt Preecha said Khon Pi Luang villagers were upset about the planned clearance. ''It's not about technical problems any more. Everything we
touch has become an issue,'' he said.
Clearing of the navigation channel, to enable passage of cargo shipping up to 100 tonnes was agreed three years ago with the signing of a commercial
navigation agreement by Burma, China, Laos and Thailand. Work began in 2002. Its first phase included blasting of 21 rapids and reefs along the route,
including Khon Pi Luang, and installation of about 100 navigation aids. Villagers are opposing the clearance, saying it will change the river forever and adversely affect their lives.
Chainarong Sretthachau, director of the Southeast Asia Rivers Network, said officials should have consulted local people before implementing the work,
because the issue had become sensitive. ''Local people have lost a lot of their trust because they see many development projects occurring in the area that may affect their lives,'' he said.

Bangkok Post, 30 April 2004

Mekong's dams wreak havoc on rural poor
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

CHIANG RAI, Thailand - In a rush to emulate Thailand's model of building dams in the name of development, countries that share the Mekong River are turning a deaf ear to the social and environmental havoc such dams have wrought, say experts.
They say that a typical example is Laos, where plans to build a dam in Chamois province close to the Laos-Vietnam border have forced 5,000 people out of their homes. Likewise, in southwestern China's Yunnan province, dam projects to harness the upstream waters of the 4,800-kilometer-long Mekong River to generate power have forced river-bank communities to migrate, often at dire economic and social cost. Two dams using China's portion of the Mekong have been commissioned, and more are planned.
"The government has not stopped building dams to protect the communities living along the river," says Yu Xiaogang, deputy director of the Green Watershed group in Yunnan. "People in Yunnan will suffer. They have been asked to tighten their belts for the sake of development."
"Rural people are the most affected when it comes to the big projects such as dam building in the Mekong River region," adds Premrudee Daoroung of the Bangkok-based Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA), a non-governmental organization (NGO). Much of this trend stems from countries in the region following the trend set by Thailand to dam the river for urban progress. "Thailand's development model does not help the people in the Mekong River area," asserts Premrudee.
Premrudee and Yu were among the experts who spoke at a three-day seminar held here for journalists from the six countries that share the Mekong River - China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The river's lower basin is home to more than 60 million people, a number that has doubled over the past 30 years, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), a Phnom Penh-based intergovernmental body that monitors the use of the river's waters by Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.
Rice is the principal crop and staple food for the region's communities, states an MRC backgrounder. "Along with rice, fish forms the basis for food security in the region." For the communities that have depended on the river for their livelihood, the seasonal floods, although a problem, are a welcome feature, says Delia Paul, communications officer of the MRC. "It is good for communities that depend on the river's fish for a living."
Recent studies done by the MRC reveal that the fisheries yield in the lower basin is estimated to be as high as 1.75 million tonnes, which amounts to US$1.45 billion. "This represents approximately 2 percent of the total world catch, and 20 percent of all fish caught from the inland waters of the world," a briefing document says.
But dam construction undermines this rich harvest, charges Chainarong Sretthachau, director of the Thai wing of the Southeast Asian Rivers Network (SEARIN). "The Pak Mun dam [in Thailand] is the most obvious. Communities along the Mun River who were dependent on fisheries for a living have been reduced to poverty due to the dam. Little thought was given by the government to the problems the dam will cause to the rural communities," he adds. "The villagers lost income, were forced on to find jobs in Bangkok as laborers, as factory workers."
Much of this is due to the way governments perceive rivers and how they proceed building dams. "Since the 1940s, the Thai government has viewed the rivers as a source of income, as a way to earn money," says Premrudee. "The idea of dam building came to us from the United States. The Mekong River was to be controlled for development." But, Premrudee points out, a significant question was evaded: development for whom?
Chainarong adds that there was little effort in Thailand to distinguish between those who stood to gain and to lose by the dam constructions. "The river and the lands of the rural communities were robbed to ensure comforts for the urban and industrialized sectors of our society."
"In 1988, 58,000 people were evicted from the reservoir area of the 1,920-megawatt Hoa Binh dam," the largest hydroelectric dam in Southeast Asia, built in northern Vietnam, according to Watershed, a TERRA publication. "The resettled people used to grow two rice crops a year in the Da River Valley. Today, they are short of food as they try to grow crops on the denuded mountainsides surrounding the river."
In Thailand, it states, dams built between 1960 and 1970 forced some 15,000 families from their land. In Laos, "more than 3,500 people were resettled from the reservoir of the Nam Ngum dam. Twenty-five years after the dam was built, local people still suffer from the lack of safe drinking water."
What is more, the affected communities were never consulted. "In Thailand and elsewhere, the people living by the river have never been consulted; there is a lack of people participation in these 'development' projects," Chainarong argues. "The approach by governments and international financial institutions on this matter is very much like a dictator," he asserts. "In a democracy, where human rights are respected, the current approach to dam building would not be possible."
Such arguments, however, have to go up against the rationale of governments to build dams. In Thailand, since the 1940s, dams have been described by those in power as symbols of nationalism and essential pillars for progress. In China, meanwhile, dams have become key to development and revenue strategies in provinces, as it tries to look for alternative ways of generating power to decrease its reliance on energy produced by burning coal, which creates pollution and health problems.
The level of wealth in Thailand as opposed to neighboring Laos helps explain why the latter wants to follow the development model of the former, since dams have helped generate the power required for Bangkok's development model.
"Like Thailand, other governments in the region feel that dams are the most important infrastructure for development," argues Chainarong. "It is an urban view, that of the powerful elite."
(Inter Press Service)