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A Healthy Mekong River is Priceless

By Carl Middleton, International Rivers (www.newsmekong.org/a_healthy_mekong_river_is_priceless)

BANGKOK, Dec 4 - The timeless rhythm of the Mekong’s seasonal cycles has nourished and inspired the peoples of the region for millennia. Many rural peoples’ lives and cultures are intimately tied to the river’s health. Even residents of the region’s bustling cities, whose lives appear more distanced from the river, are linked by the cultural richness it spawns.

While China is midway through building a controversial dam cascade on the Upper Mekong (Lancang), the river’s lower stretch – shared by Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam – has so far escaped hydropower development. Since mid-2006, however, the governments of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand have granted approval to Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Russian, and Chinese companies to investigate 11 big dams on the Mekong mainstream. These dams would change the river’s hydrology and ecology and block fish migrations, with repercussions for food security and livelihoods throughout the basin. Yet even more is at stake. The dams also threaten to sever the thread that weaves together the region's rich cultural tapestry, and forever alter a unique heritage.

Contrasting Mekong Visions
In the past months, two major meetings have offered widely differing visions for the Mekong’s future. In September, in Vientiane, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) hosted a consultation on its Hydropower Programme. This meeting was attended largely by the region’s water and energy ministry bureaucrats, hydropower companies, and international development organisations that have long backed hydropower development. Only a smattering of non-government organisations joined, and community representatives were notably absent. Despite compelling scientific evidence presented by the MRC’s own experts predicting the mainstream dams’ devastating impacts to the Mekong’s fisheries, many of the meeting’s participants remained, unsurprisingly, supportive of hydropower development.

Then, in November, in Bangkok, a coalition of civil society organisations hosted the Mekong Public Forum that was attended mostly by community representatives, non-government organisations, and academics, with the MRC represented by its CEO. This meeting presented a strikingly different appreciation of the river and its rich resources, most vividly portrayed by the very people whose livelihoods and culture are dependent upon the river, now threatened by the mainstream dams.  The personal experience of dam-affected communities stood testimony to the damage already inflicted by hydropower dams in the region and their message was clear – no more dams should be built. The meeting also heard about the energy revolution now sweeping the globe that could allow the Mekong region to leapfrog destructive dam development - if only national energy policies were adjusted to favor more efficient electricity use and recent innovations in renewable and decentralised electricity technologies.

A Rich Cultural Heritage
On its 4,800 km journey from Tibet's glaciers to the South China Sea, the river is a lifeline for over 70 ethnic groups, who know it by many names. Near its mountainous headwaters in China, it is called the Turbulent River. Downstream, where the river widens and the landscape evolves into rice-rich floodplains, it is the Mother of Waters. At journey’s end, in Vietnam’s watery delta region, it is named the Nine-Tailed Dragon.

As the river provides many of life’s basics for both rural and urban populations, it also nourishes their vibrant cultures and traditions, inspiring music, dance, song, cuisine, crafts, and rituals that colourfully breathe life into the region. Throughout its course, celebrations of the river abound. Boat races and festivals celebrate the fish harvests and annual cycles of the river. Cambodia’s water festival in November marks the mass fish migrations from Tonle Sap Lake as it empties into the Mekong.   

The river has inspired a wealth of folklore and vivid mythology. In Laos and Thailand, the "Naga Fireballs" draw tens of thousands who are awed by the reddish-pink orbs that mysteriously emerge from the river into the night sky. The fireballs are said to be the mythological serpent Naga’s breath, forming a staircase to heaven for the Lord Buddha to descend and close Buddhist Lent. If the Naga’s rivery home was turned into a series of placid lakes by mainstream dams, would it continue to work its magic?

Ritual and myth surrounds many of the river’s renowned species. In Cambodia, it is told that the Irrawaddy dolphin is the incarnation of a beautiful girl born to a poor family whose unrequited love for a wealthy man led to her drowning herself. The critically endangered Mekong Giant Catfish, which can grow to almost three meters in length, has also long been revered. In Cambodia, Buddhists pour a medicinal perfume on the massive fish to bring good luck, while around the Mun River in north-eastern Thailand, fishers believe that catching one brings bad luck that must be warded off by monk-led rituals.

Vulnerable and rare species such as the Irrawaddy dolphin and Mekong Giant Catfish are now threatened by proposed mainstream dams in Cambodia and Southern Laos that could be their death-knell. Commercial species are also threatened, the importance of which are increasingly recognised by officials. The MRC estimates the river’s wild capture fisheries to be worth at least 3 billion U.S. dollars annually. Yet, even this staggering figure understates the true value, as fisheries are also central to nutrition and food security. Nurturing this vital resource, therefore, rather than wrecking it should be central to poverty reduction strategies.

Respect for the River
They say that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So, too, to dam engineers do all rivers look like potential dams sites. Yet the decision-making processes for Mekong mainstream dams largely ignore the potential harms to the river's biological and cultural richness. While there is greater acknowledgment globally that large dams can be hugely destructive forms of development, in the Mekong region these monolithic mainstream dams are being examined under a veil of secrecy.

The Mekong River is much greater than the sum of its parts. It is not simply the provider of economic commodities such as fish, irrigation water, and hydroelectricity. It is also the lifeblood of the region, its history and inspiration, and is deeply embedded in the heart and soul of the lives of all. There are better ways to meet the region’s water and energy needs. Instead of choking the Mekong with mainstream dams, it is time that this tired, old development model be replaced with one that celebrates the region’s rich cultural and ecological heritage.

*Carl Middleton (carl@internationalrivers.org) is Mekong Program Coordinator for International Rivers (www.internationalrivers.org).

 
 

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