As discussions continue, the future of one of the world’s greatest rivers is as bleak as ever.
Tag: pak beng dam
Rebuttal to MRC CEO Statement: “Hydropower Development Will Not Kill the Mekong River”
US-based Viet Ecology Foundation responds to MRC CEO recent media interview on the future of the Pak Beng dam project.
Statement from Vietnamese non-governmental organization to the Mekong River commission
Vietnamese NGOs and individuals who are interested in sustainable water resource management in the Mekong region, present the public statement to MRC and National Mekong River Committees.
Drowning out traditions
The smiles that once brightened faces in Luangtong, a small community in Laos’ northwest Oudomxay province, have disappeared. These days the residents appear defeated, stunned by the knowledge that before long the land that has sustained them for generations will be submerged under the waters behind Pak Beng Dam.
Experts ‘greatly disappointed’ by yet another Mekong hydropower dam
International environment experts are urging Vietnam and its Mekong River neighbors to cancel another hydropower project amid concerns that the project is flawed and needs to be fixed.
At a meeting held by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) last Friday, officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam agreed to set December 20 as the start date for a six-month consultation process for the Pak Beng Dam, the third on the lower Mekong mainstream following Xayaburi and Don Sahong.
Laos Submits Mekong Dam Proposal
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.
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.