The government of Laos has submitted a request to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) secretariat to construct a dam on the Mekong River in the country’s northern Oudomxay province.
Category: Mekong
A call for basin-wide energy plans
Preparatory work for the next big dam on the Mekong — Pak Beng — in northern Laos has begun. This news supports the widespread narrative that the current rapid pace of dam construction on the Mekong River will continue until the entire river is turned into a series of reservoirs. Certainly the construction of even a few large dams will severely impact food security in the world’s most productive freshwater fishery and sharply reduce the delivery of nutrient-rich sediment needed to sustain agriculture, especially in Cambodia and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
However, our ongoing research and communication with regional policymakers provides compelling evidence that not all of the planned dams will be built due to rising political and financial risks in the region. As a consequence, we have concluded in our most recent report that it is not too late for the adoption of a new approach that would optimise the inescapable “nexus” of tradeoffs among energy generation, food security, and water use and better protect the core ecology of the river system for the benefit of future generations.
Pak Beng – The Third Domino in The Series of Mainstream Dams on The Lower Mekong in Laos
On a visit to the Asian Institute of Technology AIT on 10-15-2012 to inspect the mockup of the Xayaburi Hydropower Dam, Mr. Viraphonh Viravong, Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines of Laos, the “brain” behind all development projects for hydropower dams in Laos asserted: “There is no question of Lao PDR not developing its hydropower potential. The only question is how to do it sustainably.”
The media’s role in telling environmental stories
Journalists have the unique ability to help accelerate climate action through advocacy and education, but their potential to help achieve the global climate goals agreed in Paris last year still remains largely untapped, said media and environmental experts in Singapore.
Speaking at the inaugural Asian Environmental Journalists Forum, organised by non-profit Singapore Environment Council and media organisation Eco-Business, panellists said that shrinking budgets, a lack of public interest and the ever increasing complexity and geographical scope of climate issues are just some of the challenges that journalists face when trying to report on environmental issues today.
Myanmar to consider becoming full member of Mekong River Commission: president
Visiting Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw said Wednesday that his country agreed to consider becoming full member of the Mekong River Commission (MRC).
U Htin Kyaw made the remark while holding talks with Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi during his state visit to Vietnam, reported the state-run news agency VNA.
Cambodian government and civil society hold landmark public consultations on infrastructure development
In a landmark move for public participation in Cambodia, the government and non-government organizations jointly held public consultations on regional guidelines to ensure Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes involve affected communities.
Report reveals a big dependence on freshwater fish for global food security
Freshwater fish play a surprisingly crucial role in feeding some of the world’s most vulnerable people, according to a study published Monday (Oct. 24) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It was eye-opening just how many people are deeply dependent on freshwater fisheries as sources of protein,” says Pete McIntyre, a lead co-author of the study and professor of zoology in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Many people in poor nations do not get much animal protein to eat, and freshwater fish provide protein for the nutritional equivalent of 158 million people around the world.”
Landmark public consultations on infrastructure development held in Vientiane
A landmark public consultation in Laos on the draft Regional Guidelines on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was held in Vientiane. More than 100 representatives from private sector companies, communities, non-profit associations, international organizations, government agencies, environmental impact assessment consulting firms gathered today at a public consultation in Vientiane to provide feedback on draft Regional Guidelines on effective Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment processes as a way to ensure these processes involve communities.
Research: Watershed or Powershed? Critical Hydropolitics, China and the ‘Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Framework’
Abstract: The countries sharing the Lancang-Mekong River are entering a new era of hydropolitics with a growing number of hydropower dams throughout the basin. Three ‘powersheds’, conceptualised as physical, institutional and political constructs that connect dams to major power markets in China, Thailand and Vietnam, are transforming the nature–society relations of the watershed. In the process, new conditions are produced within which the region’s hydropolitics unfold. This is epitomised by the ‘Lancang-Mekong Cooperation’ framework, a new initiative led by China that proposes programs on both economic and water resource development, and anticipates hydrodiplomacy via China’s dam-engineered control of the headwaters.
To Fix the Mekong, Just Look at the Evidence: Q&A With Dr. John Ward
Dr. John Ward is a research scientist at the Mekong Region Futures Institute specializing in integrated natural resource management. He spoke with VOA’s Neou Vannarin about the future of the Mekong, the effects of climate change, hydropower development, and the impact on the environment and people of the region.