World Policy

Beijing’s plans for dam construction in the Yunnan province, a crucial part of China’s 10-year development strategy, are an interesting puzzle. Two rivers run nearly parallel through this impoverished southwestern territory—the Nu River, which becomes the Salween after it crosses the border into Myanmar, and the Lancang River, which is known as the Mekong once it crosses into riparian Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Both rivers fall into the region of China that the central government has targeted for extensive hydropower development, why then, has Beijing proposed to heavily dam the smaller, slower Nu instead of the larger, faster Lancang? If, as officials have stated, the goal of the recent “Develop the West” strategy is to generate power for local development and ease demands on the regional grid, why focus on the river that offers substantially less hydropower potential?  

Two explanations seem plausible—one grounded in internal Chinese politics and the other in external, international politics. A comparison of internal and external dynamics reveals that two forces, international institutions and regional economic integration, drive this policy choice. This suggests that external pressures influence China’s internal water management decisions as well as the development of the region’s many transboundary rivers.

China has built more than 40,000 hydroelectric dams—more than half of the global total—with the majority completed in the last two decades. Hydropower development in provinces like Yunnan is part of Beijing’s “Develop the West” initiative, aimed at raising living standards in the country’s poorest provinces while easing demands on the rest of China’s electrical grid.

Read more

The Nation

Thailand and Hungary have agreed to cooperate in water management of the Danube and Mekong rivers.

“We fully support Hungary’s initiative on Danube-Mekong cooperation and will explore the possibility of having concrete cooperation in the near future,” Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul said after meeting with his Hungarian counterpart Janos Martonyi in Budapest on Tuesday.

During his official visit on Monday and Tuesday, there were reports that the Danube River was rising fast and Budapest was preparing for a flood that could possibly last for 10 days.

“Hungarian experts are keen on this matter although it is very rare that the Danube would overflow and cover Budapest,” Surapong said.”They can estimate the level and duration of the flood.”

Read more

Phnom Penh Post

The parent company behind a firm constructing the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng has repeatedly violated Chinese law by building “massive” power projects without prior approval, China’s national auditor has found.

State-owned China Huaneng Group, of which Lower Sesan 2 partner Hydrolancang International Energy is a subsidiary, undertook projects including a 1,900 megawatt dam on the Mekong River without permission, a report released last month by China’s National Audit office says.

“As of the end of 2011, Huaneng had begun construction of 16 major projects – including the Huangdeng hydropower station – without prior approval,” the report states, adding that the projects were worth billions of US dollars.

In total, the auditor adds, the state-owned firm had begun 75 projects by the end of 2011, “but 81,226.27 acres [3,2871 hectares] of land that the projects were being built on had not yet been approved for construction”.

Read more

Viet Nam Net

Eighty local and foreign experts in global-warming adaptation are in Can Tho for a regional symposium that involves government partners, non-government organizations (NGOs), donor agencies and corporate partners.

Experts at the three-day event are discussing innovative climate-change mitigation models that have been successfully implemented in Southeast Asia.

The goals of the symposium include creating a dialogue between partners in the ASEAN community and designing effective community-based climate-change adaptation models.

Two to three possible adaptation measures will be taken back to each partner office to share with the local community in Can Tho.

Read more

Scoop

After executing four killers from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar last year, China’s security forces have extended their reach by uniting those countries along the Mekong River in a “war on drugs” and arrested 812 people in the narcotics-rich Golden Triangle.

China’s new push into Southeast Asia is described as an anti-drug operation which began on April 19 and will end on June 20.

It includes protecting commerical and passenger ships on the Mekong River against thieves, kidnappers and guerrillas.

Up to now, security forces from China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos said they confiscated more than two tons of drugs — including heroin, opium and methamphetamines — plus guns and ammunition.

Read more

Phnom Penh Post

In a united stand against hydropower dam projects on the Mekong River and its tributaries, villagers and NGO workers from Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam yesterday called on governments to cancel projects such as Laos’s Xayaburi dam.

Frustrated that their governments either financially support such projects or have failed to publicly oppose them, about 200 people who live along the major river and its tributaries attended a forum convened by groups including NGO Forum on Cambodia.

“Along with 12 proposed Mekong mainstream dams, most of the major Mekong tributaries in the region are now full with many existing and proposed dams,” a joint statement reads. “Yet, no meaningful dialogue to solve existing problems and prevent further destruction has yet occurred in the region.”

The message coming out of the two-day forum was hardly new, but those involved hoped the diversity of voices spreading it would better catch the attention of lawmakers.

Read more

The Cambodia Daily

About 200 people from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia affected by hydropower dam projects on the Mekong River and its tributaries gathered in Phnom Penh on Monday to share their experiences of how their lives have been adversely affected since the dams were constructed.

Speaking at an event organized by NGO Forum, representatives from the three countries spoke out about their experiences with hydropower development throughout the Mekong Region.

The information was of particular interest to those Cambodians in attendance, as villagers living in Stung Treng province are currently preparing to be evicted to make way for the reservoir of a massive 400 MW dam to be built by Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group in partnership with China’s Hydrolancang International Energy company.

Somsak Tiyata, a coordinator of the Mekong-Lanna network, an environmental group based in Thailand’s northern Chiang Rai province, said that the Chinese dams upstream on the Mekong have severely reduced the amount of vegetation and fish that Thais rely on for food.

Read more

Bangkok Post

One hundred rare turtle hatchlings have been released into the Mekong River in Cambodia as part of conservation efforts, after receiving a traditional Buddhist blessing from monks.

Listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and found mainly in Southeast Asia, the critically endangered Cantor’s giant soft-shelled turtle was believed to be extinct in Cambodia until it was rediscovered in the Mekong River in northeastern Kratie province in 2007.

Since that rediscovery, Conservation International (CI), a US-based environmental NGO, has made inroads into protecting the species and ensuring its continued survival in Cambodia.

Two years ago, CI set up a hatchling programme, raising baby turtles in its Mekong Turtle Conservation Centre and then releasing them back into the wild.

Since last year, 200 new turtles have been raised at the centre.

Read more

The New York Times

As we traveled down the Mekong River, I kept hearing variations of the same story: “There are fewer fish.”

Our guide in the Four Thousand Island region of Laos relayed that fishermen now work longer hours and catch fewer fish. At a fishing camp just below Khone Falls, at the border of Laos and Cambodia, a boat captain described how in his youth (three decades ago) they would regularly catch 30-pound fish at the base of the falls — a rare occurrence today.

He shared this story as we surveyed the days’ catch drying in the sun, consisting entirely of fish that would fit in just fine in my son’s aquarium back home. It’s not a big aquarium.

I also always asked the fishermen where the fish were coming from, and always heard the same answer: “They’re coming from Tonle Sap.”

Read more

Today, May 22, is the International Day of Biodiversity, which this year, coincides with the 2013 Year of Water Cooperation. It’s the ideal day to spend the coffee break mulling over the relationship between water, biodiversity, and agriculture in some of the world’s most critical life raft ecosystems – regions where poverty is high, populations are dense and highly dependent upon nature (agriculture, fisheries, logging) for livelihoods, and where ecosystem services are severely degraded.

The notion of Life Raft Ecosystems was put forth by The Nature Conservancy’s controversial Chief Scientist, Peter Kareiva, as a call to ecologists and conservation biologists to shift their focus from conserving pristine wilderness areas to critical regions where both nature and human populations are threatened. The CGIAR research programs on Aquatic Agricultural System (AAS), and Water Land and Ecosystems (WLE) are taking up this call by redefining agricultural research with a greater focus on the contribution of ecosystem service based approaches that integrate aquatic systems, irrigated production systems, and interactions from field to basin scales. Cambodia’s Tonle Sap provides a critical example of one of our major challenges.

The lake’s unique ecosystem has been likened to the heart of the Mekong due to its annual flood pulses. During half the year (November to May) the lake drains into the Mekong, shrinking to 2500 km², whereas during the monsoon, the flood waters from the Mekong backup in the river’s delta reversing the flow of the Tonle Sap river into the lake, which expands up to 15,800 km² in size absorbing the excess water from the monsoon and slowly releasing it as flood waters recede. Some would liken this ecosystem function to the role of a bladder rather than a heart, a more functional definition, but granted less romantic.

Read more