CHINA: Tiger Leaping Gorge Draws Strength from Nu River Activists

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 12 2004 (IPS) - China’s nascent green movement is throwing a gauntlet to the country’s new leadership in a nationwide drive to save the last of China’s free-flowing rivers.

In an exceptional bid to influence the bureaucratic fortress of China’s energy policies, green groups want the government to prove true on their pledges to abandon single- minded economic growth at the expense of the environment.

Emboldened by a surprise victory this summer in the fight to prevent the damming of the international Salween River, China’s green groups are bracing up for another organised effort to stop the construction of the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam on the upstream of the Yangtze River in South China’s Yunnan province.

They say the proposed dam would destroy the pristine environment of one of the deepest canyons in the world – a natural beauty spot known to generations of Chinese, strip local people of their livelihood and force the relocation of some 100,000 people, many of them from minority groups.

”(Chinese) environmentalists have decided to make this their next major campaign,” says Ma Jun, an environmental consultant and author of a major study on the polluted state of China’s rivers. ”I’m optimistic they will succeed because this case is a touchstone of all the big talks on balancing environmental preservation with development.”

After the economic heydays of the 1990s, new president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao have committed themselves to a major environmental clean-up in one of the world’s most polluted countries.

Environmental damage is taking a toll on the country and the cost of undoing it is costing the country between five to 12 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Chinese leaders see environmental protection and improvement as part of their target of ”scientific development” to co-ordinate the economy, society and ecology. They want to create a longer-term and sustainable development framework, not just to preserve China’s environment, but also to gain popular support.

Following a nationwide campaign of opposition organised by the green groups earlier this year, Premier Wen Jiabao suspended plans for a cascade of 13 dams on the Nu River, also known as the Salween River, which is also shared by China, Burma and Thailand.

Reports said the planned dams would be capable of generating 21 million kilowatts of electricity a year, 30 percent more than the massive Three Gorges Dam.

Energy demands of China’s runaway economy have soared over recent years, outstripping supply and making Chinese leaders uneasy about future energy needs.

Advocates are also pushing for dams saying they would boost the nation’s energy supplies and lift the region’s people out of abject poverty.

Both the Chinese and foreign media, including the Chinese official English-language newspaper ‘China Daily’, have reported the commencement of construction at the Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Crews are carrying out demolitions all around the area daily. According to a local small restaurant owner quoted in the ‘South China Morning Post’, mud and water from the blast are everywhere, and ”many trees are being pulled out by the roots.”

Non-governmental organisations and local green groups are now hoping that they can garner the same level of support – both local and international – to stop the Tiger Leaping Gorge Dam, as they did with the Nu River dam.

In opposition to the Nu River dam, the United Nations also joined the protesters’ camp pointing out that the Nu was part of the Three Parallel Rivers area that is recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site for its unique biodiversity.

Premier Wen’s intervention in the dam project elated Chinese environmentalists that for years fought the mammoth Three Gorges Dam with little result. The Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest is blamed for causing environmental devastation and the forcible removal of almost two million people.

Environmental objections to major public works were largely steamrolled during the years of previous communist leaderships. In a recently released memoir, Premier Wen’s predecessor – hydraulic engineer Li Peng, famously describes how his generation of leaders never allowed country’s energy plans to be ”jostled” by petitioners.

A petition signed by nine non-governmental organizations was sent recently to the top leaders urging them to stop the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam.

”We call on the authorities to fulfil the vision of science-based development…to balance the human interests against nature, in order to leave our precious world heritage like Hutiaoxia (Tiger Leaping Gorge), the first bend of the Yangtze, to the world and to future generations,” said the petition signed by environmental organisations which included Green Earth Volunteers and Friends of Nature.

Meanwhile, a string of high-profile articles in popular publications like the ‘Southern Weekend’, ‘Beijing Today’ and even the official ‘China Daily’ appeared one after another, calling for the historic gorge to be preserved.

But environmentalists are not being overly optimistic. Despite the growing momentum of opposition to the project, they caution that construction of the dam could be difficult to halt.

”The stakes are extremely high,” says Ma Jun, the consultant who was the first to produce a study on the implications of the dam. ”Apart from the hydropower companies, the Yunnan government is also really enthusiastic as it eyes the future reservoir as the ideal place to divert water to dilute the foul water of the Dianchi lake (in the capital city of Yunnan province).”

The dam would be a joint project between the Yunnan government and a subsidiary of the power giant China Huaneng Group, the country’s largest independent power producer.

The company is run by Li Xiaopeng, the son of the former prime minister, Li Peng who was the driving force behind the constriction of the Three Gorges Dam.

According to Guangzhou-based ‘Southern Weekend’ China Huaneng group would pay 400 million yuan (48.33 million U.S. dollars) in tax revenues to Beijing, which is twice the total annual income of the Lijiang local government – which administers the Tiger Leaping Gorge.