Selected environmental stories from media outlets in the Mekong region and beyond.
As a voracious consumer of Myanmar journalism over some time, I am fascinated by how the country’s transition to freedom of the press takes root and prospers.
Progress toward press freedom has occurred very rapidly in Myanmar since 2012, but we still see too many instances of journalists being detained and even charged over what they have published.
Grain by grain, truckload by truckload, Laos’ section of the Mekong River is being dredged of sand to make cement — a commodity being devoured by a Chinese-led building boom in the capital.
But the hollowing out of the riverbed is also damaging a vital waterway that feeds hundreds of thousands of fishermen and farmers in the poverty-stricken nation.
“Today, it’s more complicated for us to go fetch water for crops,” DeamSaengarn told AFP from the muddy river’s shores, describing how its gentle slopes have given way to steep embankments.
Experts have warned that Vietnam is in danger as Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are speeding up their Mekong water diversion plans.
Regional experts from government and civil society finalized the draft set of guidelines for engaging the public in Environmental Impact Assessment processes. The Guidelines will next be reviewed by the public in a coordinated series of region-wide public consultations in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam beginning in late September and wrapping up in October.
Twenty Cambodian journalists from six Mekong provinces and Phnom Penh attended a three-day workshop in Kratie province to learn how to better report on the costs and benefits of hydroelectric dams and other development on the Mekong River.
According to the Vietnam River Network, Lower Sesan II dam in Cambodia will affected both environmental and social aspects, not only around the project site but also from the upstream Sesan River to downstream at the Sekong River, Tonle Sap, Vietnam Mekong Delta region and also some parts of Laos and Thailand. However the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for this project only refers some affects around the dam and the transboundary impacts were not mentioned in EIA report.
From the snowy plateaus of Tibet to the mountain gorges of China’s Yunnan province and beyond to the jungled borders of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and down to the plains of Cambodia and paddy fields of Vietnam – the Mekong River is of crucial importance to tens of millions of people.
Yet, the future of the mighty Mekong is far from certain.
Irrevocably change is underway upriver and downriver – from China to the Mekong delta – as countries along the river’s length pursue hydroelectric dams as a path to power generation.
This new 144-page book, just published by Manchester University Press, argues that the current push worldwide for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is not about building infrastructure — roads, bridges, hospitals, ports and railways – for the benefit of society but about constructing new subsidies to benefit the already wealthy. It is less about financing
development than developing finance.
East Asia’s economy is entering a new phase of uncertainties and challenges stemming from complex geopolitics, a weakened European Union (EU) after Brexit, domestic political unpredictability in the US and an economic slowdown in China.
To maintain economic dynamics, regional countries need to deepen and speed up social, economic and financial reforms. The region needs to continue promoting an open and inclusive regionalism.
The investors behind Myanmar’s first special economic zone will start accepting proposals for factories in second zone known as “Zone B” at the end of the rainy season, as both phases of “Zone A” near completion, with US$760 million in foreign investment committed to the project so far.
Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings chair U Win Aung told The Myanmar Timesthat the first zone, covering 400 hectares, is almost finished. Seventy-three foreign investors from 16 countries have agreed to invest in the project, which is located in Thanlyin township, around 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Yangon.
