Thai Consul General 14.6.00
Mr Kitti Wasinondh
131 Macquarie St
Sydney 2000
Dear Mr Wasinondh,
Re: Pak Mun and Rasi Salai Dams, Thailand
We are here today to show our
support for the villagers at Pak Mun and Rasi Salai dams. At the Pak Mun
dam, more than 1,000 villagers occupied the dam crest and fish ladder on May
15 and intend to stay until the dams gates are opened. At Rasi Salai,
more than 200 people remain perched in make-shift huts as the waters of Rasi
Salai reservoir rise around them. They have also vowed not to move until the
dams gates are opened. Others at Rasi Salai are starting to remove the
dam themselves.
We wholeheartedly support the
efforts of the villagers to recover their lost livelihood and restore the
ecology of the Mun River. The construction of these dams has inundated the
farmland and destroyed the fisheries of over 40,000 people, leaving them
without means of livelihood subsistence. Allowing the river to flow unimpeded by opening the gates is the
first step towards restoration, enabling the migration of fish from the
Mekong to the Mun to occur.
The villagers demands are
reasonable given that these dams are not effective for their intended uses.
The Pak Mun dam is not performing well economically, and contributes only
marginal amounts of power to the grid. The independent international agency,
the World Commission on Dams, found that the dam was supposed to have an
electricity-generating capacity of 136 megawatts but today generates only an
average of 40 MW. Thailand currently has a surplus of power, making it
technically feasible to forfeit Pak Mun's generating capacity without
causing interruptions to power supply.
The WCD study also indicates the dam
has detrimentally affected 169 out of 265 species of fish in the Mun River. Of these, 56 species have completely disappeared. Installation of a
fish ladder as a mitigation measure has proven to be ill-conceived.
According to the WCD case study, it is now clear that the fish ladder is
not accommodating seasonal fish migration from the Mekong River into the Mun/Chi
watershed.
The Rasi Salai Dam was built in 1993
as part of a grand irrigation plan for northeastern Thailand. The dam
destroyed the largest freshwater swamp forest in the Mun River Basin, as
well as flooding fertile agricultural lands. Despite these impacts, the
project is currently useless and likely to remain so. The reservoir area is
now plagued by salination, making the water unsuitable for irrigation. The
dams gates should be opened immediately.
The international community is
closely monitoring the situation to ensure that the police do not take
violent action against the protesters. There is absolutely no justification
for use of force since the villagers have vowed to remain non-violent. We
request that you convey our demands to your government: that the police
remain non-violent and the gates of both dams be permanently opened, in
accordance with the wishes of the affected villagers.
We thank you for your attention to
these important matters.
Yours sincerely
Lee Rhiannon
Greens member of the
Legislative Council
on behalf of
Glen Klatovsky
The Wilderness Society
Cam Walker
Friends of the Earth Australia
Fran Kelly
Total Environment Centre
Igor O'Neill
Mineral Policy Institute
Melanie Gillbank
AID/WATCH
Stewart Blanch
Inland Rivers Network
Maung Maung Than
Free Burma Action Committee
Lee Tan
Australian Conservation Foundation
Please forward reply to
Lee Rhiannon, MLC
Parlaiment House
Macquarie St
Sydney 2000
Australia |
