Keeping abreast

To be honest, when I decided to go for FS, it wasn't for any prior interest in Thailand or Southeast Asia. In fact, my knowledge of the region was close to zilch, limited to the little that I learnt from history textbooks back in secondary school. And even back then, I was displaying highly Eurocentric tendencies... my tastes in literature were shaped by the traditional English canon and I had a love affair with European history which stemmed from an unhealthy obsession with Hitler and Lenin (another post for another time).

While my academic interests still remain largely similiar, I have since added another one to that palate--Southeast Asian history and culture, due in no part to my experience in FS in Thailand. What's great for me as well is the realisation that this new interest need not be one that is completely disparate from my existing interests but one that can be very complementary. For Lit, I hope to specialise in postmodernism and postcolonialism. This is something very close to my heart because we are all undeniably postcolonials, and that there is something about our former colonial past that has shaped our identities today. I am hoping to write something on Pramoedya Ananta Toer's The Buru Quartet for my thesis. Pramoedya is an Indonesian author who is deeply engaged with the issue of Indonesian identity in relation to Indonesia's colonial past (in a nutshell), as well as astute political observer and critic (who has stepped on Suharto's toes and whose works are banned in Indonesia for that reason).

Okay, I didn't mean to geek out on Lit again... my initial intention of writing this post was to just talk about my newfound enthusiasm for SEAsian literature, history and culture which has been in large part cultivated by the 6 weeks that I spent in Thailand with you guys. I have been devouring everything I read about Thailand in the Straits Times ever since I came back, as well as perusing the Bangkok Post and The Irrawaddy online. The Irradwaddy is actually a news magazine which "covers Burma and Southeast Asia" and from which Dr. Carl took some of the articles for us to read during FS. It is an excellent magazine with very well-written columns in addition to news about the region. I have added it to my list of links on the right. Just today, I came across this article which I have posted below which might be of interest to some of you on the issue of China building hydroelectric dams which would inevitably impact on the rest of the region. The phyiscal geographical details are completely lost on me, of course, but the social issues are of great interest to me. I've also decided that it would be great if my blog could also double up as a forum for discussing such issues, as I'm sure that some of you would also be interested in the same kind of issues as I am... treat it as a warm up exercise to the coming semester after nuaing for the past few weeks or so. :)

A Damming Indictment
By William Boot
August 2006

More than 30 dams planned across mainland Southeast Asia will bring electricity, population upheaval, food shortages and ecological destruction

Strange things are happening along the mighty Mekong, Southeast Asia’s longest river, which sustains 60 million people on its 2,610-mile (4,200-km) journey from Tibet to the Vietnamese coast.

The river’s flow has begun fluctuating wildly as it courses through the borderlands of Thailand and Laos, washing away fertile farming land and scores of homes.

The cause is not global warming-induced weather change, nor glaciers melting in the Himalayas, but China’s steamrollering economic growth, say environment protection campaigners.

Chinese engineers are building eight hydroelectric dams along the Mekong in China, where it is called the Lancang, blasting away rocky rapids in order to tap the river’s energy for electricity generation and transport.

These alarming developments are just a small segment of a multibillion dollar region-wide effort to harness rivers, threatening to unleash enormous human and ecological problems which will far outweigh the benefits, say environmentalists. Tens of thousands of people—mostly ethnic minorities living in isolation—face forced displacement, and the ecological damage could be unprecedented, undermining food supplies.

Dams are planned or already under construction in southwest China, Laos and Burma.

China’s ethnically diverse Yunnan province, part of which is listed by UNESCO as a huge World Heritage Site for its ecological uniqueness, has the biggest potential in East Asia for hydroelectric power generation. Chinese scientists have calculated that the province could provide more than 25 percent of the country’s total hydropower. In addition to the Mekong projects, up to 13 more dams are on the drawing board in Yunnan, along the Salween, or Nu as it’s called by the Chinese.

Jeff Rutherford, an environmental politics researcher at Chiang Mai University, told The Irrawaddy: “Turning a natural river into a series of huge bathtubs is going to have a hideous impact on the ecological integrity of the Salween. Fish migration routes will be destroyed. Downstream, some of the last great teak forests on earth will be buried under water.”

China says its dams will benefit everyone, from the 43 million inhabitants of its Yunnan province, who presumably want to enjoy 21st century electric-powered comforts like their richer fellow citizens in Shanghai or Guangzhou, to the downstream Mekong dwellers who will be spared seasonal flooding.

Pianporn Deetes, a researcher with the Thailand-based Southeast Asia Rivers Network sees it differently.

“The Mekong has drastically changed. Velocity, sediment levels and, most acutely, water fluctuations have caused great ecological damage and deterioration,” says Pianporn. “The environment will affect the livelihoods of millions of people living downstream in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.”

Across much of mainland Southeast Asia and China, the need for energy to fuel economic growth is leading to a rash of hydro dams. More than 30 are planned or under construction in China, Laos and Burma. They will necessitate the uprooting of countless numbers of people.

These dams—which collectively could generate well over 100,000 megawatts, or enough electricity to power four countries the size of Thailand—are being built in countries where people cannot effectively object.

Thailand has solved the problem of effective public protest against unpopular dams by using its neighbors in Laos and Burma as proxies to supply hydroelectric power.

In China’s Yunnan province alone, 50,000 mostly ethnic Shan, Nu, Bai and Lisu face being evicted from their homes and land to make way for dam flood waters, estimates the US-based International Rivers Network campaign organization.

Rutherford says China has a dismal record on moving people to make way for dams. “There’s plenty of evidence of that. In the Nu river valley, an ethnic Nu village was relocated to make way for a small hydro project. They ended up with 10 percent of their original farmland and a cinder-block slum.

“Lacking wisdom and caution and any understanding of the workings of the natural world, hydropower is a tempting solution for China’s leaders. And big dams make a handful of people rich.”

But dams do not come cheap. A US $1.25 billion hydroelectric scheme now under construction in Laos is being controversially underwritten by the World Bank in its first support for such projects for several years. The Nam Theun 2 is the biggest foreign investment seen in Laos, but its main purpose is to supply more than 900 megawatts of power a year into Thailand’s electricity grid for 25 years from 2009.

Ninety percent of the 6 million population of Laos have no access to electricity. Nam Theun 2 will also provide an income of around $2 billion for the Lao regime, flood an area almost the size of Singapore and which is the habitat of two wild elephant herds, force the removal of 6,000 subsistence farmers, and disrupt fish stocks along the Theun river on which many more people depend for a living and for food.

The World Bank, which faced a chorus of objections before agreeing to back Nam Theun 2, says the land to be flooded in Laos is already degraded by logging. The income generated will benefit the people of Laos, the bank believes.

Vietnam has also turned to poor Laos to help fuel its rapid economic growth. Its biggest-ever overseas investment will be a $273 million hydroelectric dam in another part of the country. Details are scant.

The Thai energy ministry said Nam Theun 2 “will be a vital cog in the development of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Power Grid, in particular the Greater Mekong Sub-Region, known as the GMS.”

There have been no similar justifications or details provided on the region’s newest hydroelectric dam development, a $1 billion 600-megawatt project at Hatgyi on the Salween river in Burma, also close to the border with Thailand.

The Hatgyi project, in Karen territory where the Burmese military have been violently evicting villagers and burning their homes, is shrouded in secrecy—as are plans to build another three or four dams also on the Salween inside Burma.

Hatgyi is the biggest single economic deal involving Burma, Thailand and China, whose state-controlled Sinohydro Corporation will be the main construction contractor. Again, Thailand will get most of the electricity generated.

China’s state-run media hailed the Hatgyi deal. The government-controlled Xinhua news agency quoted an official saying the project is “strategically important in terms of the development of regional economies, business ties and international relationships.”

That is not a view shared by Zao Noam, a Chiang Mai-based political ecologist, who told The Irrawaddy: “These dams are nothing more than another advanced stage of war by the Burmese dictatorship, only this time bringing Thai and Chinese governments into the war zone, and state authorities profiting immensely.

“The lack of information transparency has been a serious concern throughout the process in planning for the dams. All agreements among the Thais, Burmese and Chinese authorities have been done in secret, with direct clauses written into contracts not to disclose any information to outside parties. That is an act that directly goes against the Thai constitution.”

A Thailand-based coalition of environmental and human rights groups, Salween Watch, says there has been little scientific planning for the dams planned on the Burmese stretch of the Salween, which is Southeast Asia’s last major free-flowing river. For example, the height of the Hatgyi dam could exceed those further upstream penciled in to flood narrow steep-sided gorges. The other confirmed Burmese dam sites are at Dagwin, Weigyi and Tasang.

A spokesman for Salween Watch said aside from the human rights abuses at the heart of the dams’ development, the river’s fragile ecology will be damaged, especially in the delta region where it spills into the Andaman Sea. “It will have serious effects on the fertility of the flood plain. The delta area will start retreating. The mangrove forests will start retreating, with knock-on effects for fishing and especially the fish-spawning grounds. River fish stocks will also be damaged.”

If all the dams planned on the Salween in Burma go ahead, observers estimate that the investment could expand to an unprecedented $15 billion and generate more than 12,000 megawatts of electricity—the equivalent of almost half Thailand’s current annual power needs.

Few critics of the Burmese regime see these developments improving the flickering electricity supply within Burma, where much of the 50 million population still lives without a regular power supply because of inadequate generation and transmission infrastructure. The military and government-run businesses garner priority supply. However, the dams would financially sustain the regime, as does the export sale of another major natural resource, gas.

“What’s really cynical about these Burma dams is that they are being built in war zones,” says Salween Watch. “It’s almost as though that is an attractive point for the developers because they don’t have to pay people any compensation. The UN and Western countries eventually pay the cost—in refugee aid and resettlement.”

One estimate, by the Karenni Development Research Group, suggests that more than 30,000 people, mostly Karen, would be displaced by the dams and over 30 villages and small towns abandoned.

The main beneficiary of Burmese hydroelectric production would be Thailand, which is seeking to reduce its dependency on oil and gas.

“The involvement of the Burma army in any major development project will bring misery to the local people,” says Rutherford. “The bigger the project, the greater the misery. It is a great moral crime for Thailand and China to invest in the Burma dams.”

But if the proposed 13 dams go ahead on the Salween in China, the dams on the river in Burma could be stillborn for the simple reason that there may not be enough water flowing through to drive much more than a few windmills.

The so-called cascade system to build dams along the Chinese Salween in Yunnan aims to capture the river’s power as it tumbles through gorges set in one of the world’s last great undamaged areas of rich biodiversity. A large area of the terrain has only recently been designated a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO is so alarmed by the threat of the dams that it sent an investigation team to check in April this year. Despite assurances from the Beijing central government that plans are on hold pending a full environmental impact study, the investigators were dismayed by what they saw happening and issued a statement expressing “gravest concerns.” (See Eyewitness On The Salween).

The issue is so sensitive that a German journalist working for Die Zeit newspaper was arrested briefly in Yunnan last month and made to hand over to police notes he made while trying to interview people about the dams.

UNESCO’s citation designating the Yunnan heritage site says: “It is the area of richest biodiversity in China and may be the most biologically diverse temperate region on earth. As the last remaining stronghold for an extensive range of rare and endangered plants and animals, the site is of outstanding universal value.”

The UN body was meeting to discuss the dams issue towards the end of July, but few observers believe China will leave the region intact, whatever Beijing is saying now. China is desperate for energy to continue driving its huge economy forward. Central planners in Beijing are under pressure to reduce the country’s use of coal, which is polluting the air and land with unprecedented levels of sulfur dioxide, and is blamed by the World Health Organization for causing up to 400,000 premature deaths a year.

“Clean” hydroelectric dams offer Beijing a solution—at a huge social and environmental cost.

“The dams would displace 50,000 people, and indirectly affect the livelihoods of millions living downstream in China, Burma and Thailand,” said the International Rivers Network’s campaigns director Aviva Imhof.

Her estimate could be very conservative. Yunnan’s Resettlement and Development Bureau was quoted in the Kunming Evening Daily in May forecasting that “starting from this year Yunnan Province will have to move on average 40,000 people every year to pave the way for hydropower development” involving 33 dams up to 2020.

The financial cost alone of building dams is often unjustified by the return. Probe International, a Canada-based anti-dam campaign body, says China’s second-largest hydroelectric scheme, at Ertan in Sichuan province, which displaced 46,000 people, is losing $15 million a year selling electricity below cost and has had to be bailed out by the Bank of China to help repay $1 billion in World Bank loans.

Supporters of hydro dams say they bring economic development, jobs, better water supply, and renewable energy in a world of depleting oil and gas. But dams might not be so clean: scientists argue that the flooding of large areas of vegetation leads to huge quantities of carbon dioxide being generated into the atmosphere from decomposition—fueling global warming.

“If the dams are only used for electricity production, then the impact in terms of water volume downstream probably won’t be as great as its opponents fear,” concedes Jeff Rutherford. “But it is hard to believe that the Chinese will be willing to let all that water flow into Burma. We know that the Chinese have both the capacity and the myopia, ­ like their American trendsetters, to wreak havoc upon great rivers.”

Rutherford says China is indulging in a “great plumber’s fantasy” of seeking to irrigate the country’s vast arid north with water from the west.

“If they realize the plan to divert water from the great rivers emerging from Tibet—the Brahmaputra, the Salween, the Mekong, as well as the Yangtze—then their downstream neighbors are in bad, bad trouble.”