Don't mess with the mighty Mekong

Wasant Techawongtham

The Mekong, one of the world's least exploited rivers, is now in the full line of sight. The agreement reached between China and five Asean members
at the weekend will bring drastic changes that could spell doom for this mighty river. The five riparian Asean countries _ Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand _ agreed to join China in bringing a network of power grids, highways and telecommunications to the region.
As the world economy continues its downward spiral, countries have felt the need to form alliances to ensure economic survival. This latest agreement
is part of that effort to seek common ground to bring prosperity to the region. That is well and good. The problem, however, is that in a world where
environmental degradation has become increasingly a menace to us all, the pact will almost certainly worsen the already bad situation in the region.
The agreement focuses on the development of hydropower and navigation. China itself has planned a chain of at least eight dams on the stretch of
the Mekong that it calls Lancang Jiang in Yunnan province. Two reportedly have been built already.
Last year, the Asian giant talked Burma, Laos and Thailand into signing an agreement to improve navigation along the river for large cargo boats from
Yunnan to Chiang Rai. This necessitates the destruction of reefs, sandbars and islands, and extensive modification of the river bed and stream banks.
Severe ecological damage is inevitable. China's scheme for the Mekong has raised serious concerns. Environmentalists and natural resources experts fear the devastation of the riverine ecology on which the local people's way of life depends.
Writing for the Siam Society last year, Tyson R Roberts, research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, warned that the Chinese
plan poses unprecedented environmental and social problems for the downstream countries. The development plan will lead to deforestation, downstream erosion, massive loss of biodiversity including the extinction of some endemic fish species, and a serious impact on agriculture and thus the local way of life.
It could also aggravate floods in the region. Because the main purpose of the Chinese dams is electricity generation, they have to be kept fairly full of water, he says. If a big flood suddenly and unexpectedly arrives, the reservoirs will have to release water, thus contributing to the severity of flooding downstream. This threat is particularly relevant in light of what appears to be the increasing frequency of severe flooding which has swept over the region in 1996, 2000 and again this year. China lured the five countries to join its scheme by dangling the promise of regional prosperity, and the countries just jumped up and took it without considering what actually was in store for them.
Mr Roberts has warned that these countries will be forced to undertake exhausting and largely futile efforts to protect themselves and make up for the damage to their agriculture, fisheries, forests and way of life. Cambodia and Vietnam will be hardest hit, while China will benefit the most. But even China will not escape the eventual consequences of ecological calamity. But then, China has never allowed consideration for the environment, or its neighbours for that matter, to get in the way of its development. It felt no qualms when it decided to build the Three Gorges dam that kills the great Yangtze river and dislocated more than a million people. When it builds dams on the Mekong, it does not care to consult its downstream neighbours who also have a stake in the river and are directly affected.
Are we then prepared to follow its lead and throw away our ecological fortune on which our economic security is based?

Wasant Techawongtham is Deputy News Editor for Environment and Urban
Affairs, Bangkok Post.

Bangkok Post:GENERAL NEWS - Sunday 10 November 2002

Chinese dams could harm river ecology

Large state projects `put Mekong at risk' -

Thailand should be more aware of the adverse impact of Chinese hy-dropower dams and the blasting of rapids under the Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement project, a Chinese environmental expert warned yesterday. ``At present, two large-scale dams have been built, one dam is under construction, and two dams are on the way,'' Yu Xiaogang told a five-day public forum on River Basin Development in the Mekong region, running here until Tuesday. The Chinese dams would destroy the river's ecosystem, he said. They would also give China control over water levels and the Mekong would no longer be useful for any purposes other than electricity generation, said Mr Yu, also director of Green Watershed, a China-based non-governmental organisation. With its source in the Tibetan Plateau, the river stretches 4,840km through six countries: Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos,

Thailand and Vietnam. ``The more dams are constructed, the greater damage they would bring to our Mekong,'' Mr Yu said.

Thailand had already experienced the impact of Chinese dams in March, when the water level in Chiang Rai's Chiang Saen district reached a record low because the spillways of a Chinese dam were closed to prepare for rock blasting on the banks of the river.

International pressure was a must to save the river from the Chinese government's large-scale projects, Mr Yu said, adding that the pressure, such as strong opposition to China's navigation project, could influence the government's decision-making process. China is shouldering the entire burden of the US$5 million project, which requires the destruction of several reefs and shoals to create a water channel 1.5 metres deep and 25-28 metres wide to allow 500-tonne ships to navigate year-round. The project was one-third complete, he said.

Opponents said that without the rapids, the river would flow faster, eroding banks and damaging riverside plantations.

Mr Yu said Chinese environmentalists hoped Beijing's policy makers had a similar perspective regarding the river as China's first generation of leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, who saw the Mekong as a river which created a good relationship with neighbouring countries, rather than one which brought about economic growth. ``When these leaders visited countries in Indochina, they always said: `We drink water from the same river, so we are relatives','' Mr Yu said. But the power-grid agreement endorsed last week at the first leaders' summit of the Greater Mekong Sub-region and China showed that Chinese leaders no longer had such admirable sentiments, he said.

Under the agreement, some 32 hydropower dams within the grid are scheduled for completion by 2019.

Participants at the forum, held by the Bangkok-based Toward Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERR) and Australia's Mekong Resource Centre, also discussed other projects believed to be environmentally harmful to the region. These included Vietnam's Yali Falls dam and the proposed

Se San 3 dam. Others were Thailand's Kok-Ing-Nan and Khong-Chi-Mun water diversion projects.

Kultida Samabuddhi

Vietnam: Donors for Mekong River Commission meet in Ho Chi Minh City

November 14, 2002 7:48am

Ho Chi Minh City, 13 November: Representatives of 11 donors for the Mekong River Commission (MRC) gathered in Ho Chi Minh City today, 13 November, for the seventh meeting of the Consultative Group for MRC. They came from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. Also present at the meeting were representatives of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank (WB) and
MRC members: Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
The meeting, chaired by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Huy Ngo, who is also chairman of the MRC for the 2002-03 period, focused its
discussions on the MRC's important programmes, including the Flood Control Programme, the Aquaculture Programme and the Waterway Programme. Donors highly appreciated the MRC's efforts and achievements in managing and coordinating cooperative activities in the Mekong basin. They pledged to continue granting donations to the MRC's programmes, projects and other activities. The Flood Control Programme has received great attention and assistance from many donors, the meeting was told.
Other programmes on strengthening capacity, environment, fisheries, and waterways have also received financial commitments in the fiscal year of 2003. Donors and international organizations have donated 6.5m USD [US dollars] to the MRC over the past year and pledged to provide a further 13m USD. The
donations will be used in protecting the environment in the Mekong River basin.