Pending Dam Decision: Killing Local Livelihoods in the Mekong River Region For Power Export
April 16, 2011 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis Villages along the Mekong River in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic are sure to see the destruction of their way of life, say environmentalists, if the go-ahead is given during a meeting this Tuesday to decide whether a first of series of dams should be built on the lower mainstream of the river.
A section of the Mekong River in Lao. Photo courtesy of .traveladventures.org.
If built, the Xayaburi Dam would be the largest of eleven large dams proposed to be built on the river. The decision to build must be agreed on by the Mekong River Commission’s member countries of Lao, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
International Rivers, one of the environmental groups working to create public pressure to stop the dam, estimates that “the project would resettle around 2,100 people and directly affect a further 202,000 people living near the dam due to impacts on the river’s ecology and fisheries.”
A preliminary evaluation by the commission in 2009 also highlighted potential concerns including adverse effects to the river’s biodiversity, such as the dam’s potential to “block [fish] migration routes and lead to [the] fragmentation of habitats.”