An igapó, a flood-prone wooded area on the Vuelta Grande of the Xingu River, with fruit on the dry ground. This is where the piracema, or fish reproduction, was supposed to take place, frustrated by the scarcity of water released by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on this stretch of the river in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The fruits are lost and stop feeding the fish by falling on the ground and not in the water. Credit: Mati / VGX

By Mario Osava
BELÉM, Brazil, Jul 28 2024 (IPS)

The decade-and-a-half-long battle for life in the so-called Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu river, a stretch of the river dewatered by the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Amazon, has a possible solution, albeit a partial one.

The mega power project divided the waters of the Xingu. It has taken up most of the river and emptied the now 130-kilometre U-shaped Reduced Flow Stretch (TVR, in Portuguese), whose banks are home to two indigenous groups and a community, all affected by the depletion of fish, the basis of their livelihood.“We have become illiterate about the river, and the fish. We no longer know how to read what is happening in the river”: river dweller.

A proposal drawn up by these villagers and scientific researchers makes it possible to recover the minimum conditions for the reproduction of fish, which have declined since the plant began operations in 2016. The goal is to mitigate the project’s negative impacts on the people living in the area.

But Norte Energía, the concessionaire of Belo Monte, estimates that this alternative would cost it a 39% reduction in its electricity generation. The dilemma pits the vital needs of the riverside population against the company’s economic feasibility.

Belo Monte, 700 kilometres southwest of Belém, is one of major power and logistics projects that abounded in Latin America in the first two decades of this century. It is the third largest hydroelectric plant in the world, with a capacity of 11,233 megawatts and an expected effective generation of only 40% on average.

Josiel Juruna, speaking at a July meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, in the city of Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

The Xingu river in the eastern Amazon region attracted energy interest because of its average flow of 7,966 cubic metres per second and the gradient that allowed Belo Monte to have its main power plant with a water fall of 87 metres.

But its flow has excessive variations, with floods 20 times higher than its low water level. With less than 1,000 cubic metres per second in low water, it lowers the plant’s average annual generation.

To prevent the flooding of the Volta Grande of the Xingu (VGX) and, within it, of the two indigenous lands of the Juruna and Arara peoples, a canal was built to connect the two points of the curve, diverting about 70% of the river’s waters and draining the life out of the curved section.

A sarobal, an island of stones and sand, prone to flooding in the Vuelta Grande of Xingu, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon. It used to be a fish breeding site, but lost that function due to the water shortage caused by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, which diverted 70% of the river’s water into a channel used for power generation. Credit: Mati / VGX

The power plant and the ecosystem’s disruption

In addition to taking away water, the project disrupted the environment, especially water cycles, and thus human, animal and plant life. “We have become illiterate about the river, and the fish. We no longer know how to read what is happening in the river,” said a river dweller at a hearing organised by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in August 2022.

Piracema, the upstream migration of shoals of fish during spawning, is vital to sustain livelihoods in the VGX, stresses Josiel Juruna, local coordinator of the Independent Territorial Environmental Monitoring (Mati).

Belo Monte deteriorated the quality of life of river dwellers by making piracema unviable.

That is why Mati, led by some 30 university scientists and local researchers, prioritised the monitoring and recovery of the piracema, understood as a site for procreation, apart from monitoring and measuring other ecological aspects in the stretch most affected by the hydroelectric plant.

An Independent Environmental and Territorial Monitoring team observes critical points in the low-flow section of the Xingu river, whose waters have been diverted to the canal that feeds the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Courtesy of Juarez Pezzuti

As a result of their participatory research, launched in 2014 by the Juruna people and the non-governmental Instituto Socioambiental, in 2022 Mati presented to environmental authorities the Piracema Hydrograph, which indicates the flow necessary for the reproduction of fish in the VGX.

This is an alternative to hydrographs A and B, which govern the flow of water that Belo Monte releases to the VGX, in defined quantities for each month, to meet the conditions agreed for the operation of the hydroelectric plant. They are also called Consensus hydrographs, applied according to different pluviometric conditions.

These flows were defined in the environmental impact studies carried out by specialised companies, but paid for by Norte Energía, to obtain the license for the construction and operation of the plant.

A sample of the hydrographs that should govern the amount of water destined each month to the Vuelta Grande of the Xingu river to sustain its ecological functions. In purple and with flow figures for each month, the hydrograph proposed by indigenous people, riverside dwellers and scientific researchers to recover the lower and more productive piracemas. Credit: Mati / VGX

Piracema, key to river life

Indigenous people have always disagreed with these hydrographs because they do not ensure the necessary flow for maintaining the ecosystem, which is indispensable for the fish, the basis of their diet and the income they obtain from the sale of surplus fish.

It releases insufficient water at inappropriate times, ignoring the dynamics of the piracema, according to Juruna.

“The Belo Monte hydrograph only allows flooding in April, but the piracema requires lots of water between January and March, so that it fills the sarobal and igapós, where the female fish arrive to spawn and then the males for fertilisation,” he told IPS in Belém.

The word sarobal in Brazil defines an island of stone and sand, flooded and with vegetation of grasses and shrubs that provide food for the fish. Igapó is also a flooded area of banks and small waterways, with trees and vegetation that produce fruit and other foodstuffs.

Without water, the fish do not have access to their breeding grounds or to the fruits, which fall on the dry ground. Juruna often shows a video of a curimatá, a fish abundant in the Xingu, with dried eggs in its belly. It “couldn’t spawn” because there was no water in the piracema at the right time, he explained.

Apart from more water, the Piracema Hydrograph requires bringing forward the release of more water for the Vuelta Grande by at least three months. And maintaining the flood for a few months is also indispensable to feed the fish with the fruits falling in the water and not on the ground.

In fact, it is necessary to increase the flow of the VGX with ‘new water’ from November onwards, so that the fish start to migrate. “Without the right amount of water at the right time, there is no piracema”, the basis of river life, stresses a Mati report.

Fish killed by a fall in water flow in the Xingu river’s Vuelta Grande. Credit: Mati / VGX

Irrecoverable way of life

The Piracema Hydrograph will not restore the former way of life in the Vuelta Grande. That would require restoring past conditions, without the hydroelectric plant, admitted Juruna. His goal is to rehabilitate “the lower piracemas”, i.e. the sarobals and the floodable igapós with a little more water than what Belo Monte releases.

“The higher piracemas will no longer exist,” he lamented.

There will be no fish as before, the Juruna have already become farmers and mainly cultivate cocoa. A recovery of the piracemas will allow them to fish for their own food, but hardly for sale and income, he said.

Community life has declined among the indigenous people, who increasingly feed themselves on ‘city products’ and move more and more to Altamira, a city 50 kilometres away from the indigenous land of Paquiçamba, where the Jurunas live.

With Belo Monte, a road to the city was built and motorbikes have multiplied in the indigenous village, Juruna observed. Their way of life has been profoundly altered, but the indigenous people are resisting the death of their river and the Mati have added their traditional knowledge to scientific research.

Biologist Juarez Pezzuti, a professor at the Federal University of Pará, based in Belém, and a member of Mati, believes it necessary to dispel the idea of Belo Monte and other hydroelectric plants, especially those in the Amazon, as sources of sustainable energy.

“They emit greenhouse gases in a similar proportion to fossil-fuel thermoelectric plants,” he told IPS. In addition to flooding vegetation when the reservoir is formed, they continue to do so afterwards, because as their waters recede, the vegetation that will later be flooded is renewed.

Their downstream impacts are only now beginning to be studied. In the Amazon, they dry up the igapós, as has already been seen in the Balbina power plant near Manaus, capital of the neighbouring state of Amazonas.

It is a technology in decline, whose social, environmental and climatic costs tend to be better recognised and call into question its benefits, he concluded.

Indigenous people who would be directly affected by the impact of a hydroelectric project in Panama were not consulted despite national and international human rights obligations to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, according to a just-released report.

Acting on behalf of communities in Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous territory, the Movimiento 10 de Abril (M-10) had filed a complaint with the Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM) of the Dutch FMO and German DEG development banks alleging that the Barro Blanco dam project which the banks were financing would lead to the flooding of the communities’ homes, schools, and religious, archaeological and cultural sites.

The two banks were accused of failing to adequately assess the risks to indigenous rights and the environment before approving a 50 million dollar loan to GENISA, the project’s developer.

The independent panel’s report, released May 29, found that the “lenders should have sought greater clarity on whether there was consent to the project from the appropriate indigenous authorities prior to project approval,” adding that “the lenders have not taken the resistance of the affected communities seriously enough.”

“We did not give our consent to this project before it was approved, and it does not have our consent today,” said Manolo Miranda, a representative of the M-10.  “We demand that the government, GENISA and the banks respect our rights and stop this project.”

According to the ICM’s report, “significant issues related to social and environmental impact and, in particular, issues related to the rights of indigenous peoples were not completely assessed.”

The environmental and social action plan (ESAP) accompanying the project “contains no provision on land acquisition and resettlement and nothing on biodiversity and natural resources management. Neither does it contain any reference to issues related to cultural heritage.”

Ana María Mondragón, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), said: “This failure constitutes a violation of international standards regarding the obligation to elaborate adequate and comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments before implementing any development project, in order to guarantee the right to free, prior and informed consent, information and effective participation of the potentially affected community.”

In February this year, the Panamanian government provisionally suspended construction of the Barro Blanco dam and subsequently convened a dialogue table with the Ngöbe-Buglé, with the facilitation of the United Nations, to discuss the future of the project.

The Barro Blanco project was registered under the Clean Development Mechanism, a system under the Kyoto Protocol that allows the crediting of emission reductions from greenhouse gas abatement projects in developing countries.

“As climate finance flows are expected to flow through various channels in the future, the lessons of Barro Blanco must be taken very seriously,” said Pierre-Jean Brasier, network coordinator at Carbon Market Watch. “To prevent that future climate mitigation projects have negative impacts, a strong institutional safeguard system that respects all human rights is required.”

The ICM will monitor the banks’ implementation of corrective actions and recommendations, while M-10 said that it expects FMO and DEG to withdrawal their investment from the project and ask that the Dutch and German governments show a public commitment to ensuring the rights of the affected Ngöbe-Buglé.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Houseboats line the Nile bank in Cairo. Some 85 million Egyptians depend on the Nile for water. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Mar 21 2014 (IPS)

When Egypt’s then-president Mohamed Morsi said in June 2013 that “all options” including military intervention, were on the table if Ethiopia continued to develop dams on the Nile River, many dismissed it as posturing. But experts claim Cairo is deadly serious about defending its historic water allotment, and if Ethiopia proceeds with construction of what is set to become Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam, a military strike is not out of the question.

Relations between Egypt and Ethiopia have soured since Ethiopia began construction on the 4.2 billion dollar Grand Renaissance Dam in 2011.

Egypt fears the new dam, slated to begin operation in 2017, will reduce the downstream flow of the Nile, which 85 million Egyptians rely on for almost all of their water needs. Officials in the Ministry of Irrigation claim Egypt will lose 20 to 30 percent of its share of Nile water and nearly a third of the electricity generated by its Aswan High Dam."Hydroelectric dams don’t work unless you let the water through.” -- Richard Tutwiler, a specialist in water resource management at the American University in Cairo

Ethiopia insists the Grand Renaissance Dam and its 74 billion cubic metre reservoir at the headwaters of the Blue Nile will have no adverse effect on Egypt’s water share. It hopes the 6,000 megawatt hydroelectric project will lead to energy self-sufficiency and catapult the country out of grinding poverty.

“Egypt sees its Nile water share as a matter of national security,” strategic analyst Ahmed Abdel Halim tells IPS. “To Ethiopia, the new dam is a source of national pride, and essential to its economic future.”

The dispute has heated up since Ethiopia began diverting a stretch of the Nile last May, with some Egyptian parliamentarians calling for sending commandos or arming local insurgents to sabotage the dam project unless Ethiopia halts construction.

Ethiopia’s state-run television responded last month with a report on a visit to the site by army commanders, who voiced their readiness to “pay the price” to defend the partially-built hydro project.

Citing a pair of colonial-era treaties, Egypt argues that it is entitled to no less than two-thirds of the Nile’s water and has veto power over any upstream water projects such as dams or irrigation networks.

Accords drawn up by the British in 1929 and amended in 1959 divvied up the Nile’s waters between Egypt and Sudan without ever consulting the upstream states that were the source of those waters.

The 1959 agreement awarded Egypt 55.5 billion cubic metres of the Nile’s 84 billion cubic metre average annual flow, while Sudan received 18.5 billion cubic metres. Another 10 billion cubic metres is lost to evaporation in Lake Nasser, which was created by Egypt’s Aswan High Dam in the 1970s, leaving barely a drop for the nine other states that share the Nile’s waters.

While the treaty’s water allocations appear gravely unfair to upstream Nile states, analysts point out that unlike the mountainous equatorial nations, which have alternative sources of water, the desert countries of Egypt and Sudan rely almost entirely on the Nile for their water needs.

“One reason for the high level of anxiety is that nobody really knows how this dam is going to affect Egypt’s water share,” Richard Tutwiler, a specialist in water resource management at the American University in Cairo (AUC), tells IPS. “Egypt is totally dependent on the Nile. Without it, there is no Egypt.”

Egypt’s concerns appear warranted as its per capita water share is just 660 cubic metres, among the world’s lowest. The country’s population is forecast to double in the next 50 years, putting even further strain on scarce water resources.

But upstream African nations have their own growing populations to feed, and the thought of tapping the Nile for their agriculture or drinking water needs is all too tempting.

The desire for a more equitable distribution of Nile water rights resulted in the 2010 Entebbe Agreement, which replaces water quotas with a clause that permits all activities provided they do not “significantly” impact the water security of other Nile Basin states. Five upstream countries – Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda – signed the accord. Burundi signed a year later.

Egypt rejected the new treaty outright. But after decades of wielding its political clout to quash the water projects of its impoverished upstream neighbours, Cairo now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of watching its mastery over the Nile’s waters slip through its fingers.

“Ethiopia’s move was unprecedented. Never before has an upstream state unilaterally built a dam without downstream approval,” Ayman Shabaana of the Cairo-based Institute for Africa Studies had told IPS last June. “If other upstream countries follow suit, Egypt will have a serious water emergency on its hands.”

Ethiopia has sought to assure its downstream neighbours that the Grand Renaissance Dam is a hydroelectric project, not an irrigation scheme. But the dam is part of a broader scheme that would see at least three more dams on the Nile.

Cairo has dubbed the proposal “provocative”.

Egypt has appealed to international bodies to force Ethiopia to halt construction of the dam until its downstream impact can be determined. And while officials here hope for a diplomatic solution to diffuse the crisis, security sources say Egypt’s military leadership is prepared to use force to protect its stake in the river.

Former president Hosni Mubarak floated plans for an air strike on any dam that Ethiopia built on the Nile, and in 2010 established an airbase in southeastern Sudan as a staging point for just such an operation, according to leaked emails from the global intelligence company Stratfor posted on Wikileaks.

Egypt’s position was weakened in 2012 when Sudan, its traditional ally on Nile water issues, rescinded its opposition to the Grand Renaissance Dam and instead threw its weight behind the project. Analysts attribute Khartoum’s change of heart to the country’s revised domestic priorities following the secession of South Sudan a year earlier.

According to AUC’s Tutwiler, once Sudan felt assured that the dam would have minimal impact on its water allotment, the mega-project’s other benefits became clear. The dam is expected to improve flood control, expand downstream irrigation capacity and, crucially, allow Ethiopia to export surplus electricity to power-hungry Sudan via a cross-border link.

Some studies indicate that properly managed hydroelectric dams in Ethiopia could mitigate damaging floods and increase Egypt’s overall water share. Storing water in the cooler climes of Ethiopia would ensure far less water is lost to evaporation than in the desert behind the Aswan High Dam.

Egypt, however, is particularly concerned about the loss of water share during the five to ten years it will take to fill the dam’s reservoir. Tutwiler says it is unlikely that Ethiopia will severely choke or stop the flow of water.

“Ethiopia needs the electricity…and hydroelectric dams don’t work unless you let the water through.”

Three boys in the Moqattam area look out over Cairo, the growing population of which is rapidly depleting already scarce water resources. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS.

By Shelly Kittleson
CAIRO, Feb 6 2014 (IPS)

Heavy reliance on water intensive crops, a major upstream dam project for the Nile basin, and rising groundwater levels pushing at pharaoh-era monuments will be pressing issues for the next Egyptian president – whether military or civilian.

As criticism continues over the military’s heavy-handedness to quell protests, little attention is being given to the late January announcement by Egypt’s minister of irrigation and water resources on the growing severity of the country’s water shortage: share of water per citizen stands at 640 cubic metres, compared with an international standard of 1,000.

The minister said he expected this amount to decrease to 370 cubic metres by 2050 due to a rapidly growing population.“Many people need to start measuring how much water they use, but it’s hard to break traditions here.”

A scientist working in the water resources sector expressed cautious hope to IPS that “the military is one of the few institutions that can actually get things done.” But he added: “That said, they were in power for a long time and didn’t do anything.”

Improving irrigation practices and countering the demographic explosion are some of the most commonly cited actions to be considered, as well as reducing the use of pesticides and improving sewage and waste disposal systems to prevent contaminating the limited water supplies available.

Attempting to lessen the population’s consumption of sugar would also be beneficial, experts say, not only in terms of water supplies but also public health.

Hugely popular juice pressed from water-intensive sugarcane can be found on street corners across Egypt, with inhabitants swearing by its “kidney-cleansing” properties. Ubiquitous coffee and tea gets steeped in sugar.

Diabetes levels have risen by 83 percent over the past 15 years, but little attempt is made to inform the public of the health-related risks or stem the preponderance of sugarcane production.

Egypt’s agriculture sector consumes well over 80 percent of the country’s annual water resources and sugarcane accounts for a large portion, alongside rice and cotton.

Rice production has been banned by the government in some areas for its heavy water requirements, though it commands a high price on the international market, is a staple for the population, and a certain quantity helps control soil salinity and limits saltwater intrusion in the Delta.

Egypt is instead the world’s largest importer of wheat and buys over half of its requirements from abroad, much of which goes into subsidised bread for the quarter of its 84 million people who live below the poverty line of 1.65 dollars a day.

A serious issue is that outdated irrigation practices are still in use, Hussein Jeffrey John Gawad, a hydro-geologist working as a consultant in Egypt, told IPS.

“Because there was always an abundance of water before, they just continue flooding the farms,” he said. “Many people need to start measuring how much water they use, but it’s hard to break traditions here.”

In certain areas of the country, it is instead an excess of water that is causing problems. The most traditional face of Egypt to the world – and its main magnet for tourism, a sector that accounted for more than a tenth of Egypt’s GDP prior to the 2011 uprising – may be in danger as well, Gawad noted, due to rising groundwater around the country’s ancient monuments.

As the population swells, agriculture increasingly encroaches on areas near important monuments, bringing with it artificial irrigation channels to which chemical fertilisers are added, thereby increasing salinity levels and seeping into limestone foundations, weakening them.

A rise in the water table around the Osireion – the only remaining visible tomb in Abydos, one of Egypt’s most important archaeological sites – has made it largely inaccessible due to inundation of sand and flooding.

Gawad said that at one point the government had tried to install a “dewatering” system, “but now there is literally zero government attention to this.”

At some sites, pumps and drainage pipes have been set up, with varying levels of success. An international rescue effort led by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in the 1960s saved the enormous blocks of the Abu Simbel temples from being submerged by relocating them onto an artificial hill during the construction of the Aswan Dam.

However, the more gradual but relentless weakening of temple foundations and steady erosion of carvings and ancient paintings has not drawn similar attention.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s diversion of the Blue Nile as part of its massive Renaissance Dam project looms large over any discussion of Egypt’s future water supplies.

As part of colonial-era agreements, Egypt long held rights to the vast majority of the Nile’s waters. In mid-2010, however, five upstream countries – Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, with Burundi joining in the following year – signed a treaty to share the dam’s resources, formally launching the project in April 2012.

“Ethiopia has the right to use the water flowing through their lands,” Gawad said, “but the policy of the Egyptian government is to not grant them that right. They stick by colonial-era mandates when it is convenient, and throw them by the wayside when it is not.”

A study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development found in 2005 that 98 percent of Egyptian agriculture was irrigated with Nile water or pumped from aquifers renewed by the Nile River flow. Under former president Mohammed Morsi, there was talk of “going to war” if the dam project were to be completed, but officials have since said this option has been ruled out.

Journalists have been arrested for questioning the merits and funding of the dam in Ethiopia, and the country shows no willingness to consider alternative options. Few reliable studies have been carried out on the potential effects of the project, but reducing the amount of water flowing into the water-strapped nation further downstream will inevitably pose risks to its economy and, as a result, its stability.

A ferry boat on the Sesan River. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS.

By Michelle Tolson
RATANAKIRI PROVINCE, Cambodia, Dec 17 2013 (IPS)

“I prefer the dam to the fish,” says middle-aged farmer Ton Noun, when asked his opinion on a proposed 400 megawatt dam on Sesan river near his home in northeastern Cambodia. Then he chuckles and asks, “What fish?”

That’s because there are few fish in the brown, murky waters of the river, and he can buy them cheap from bordering Vietnam. On the other hand, electricity – which the dam promises – is costly.

“Electricity is expensive because the village doesn’t have it,” Ton tells IPS.

Cambodia, among the least developed countries in Asia, lacks an electrical grid. Only 26 percent of the population has access to government-supplied electricity. The rest use private operators, generators, or have no electricity at all. Private operators charge consumers as much as 75 cents per kilowatt per hour.“Since the Vietnam dam was built, there have been less and less fish."

Ton pays 15 dollars per month for electricity, using a battery and a generator – costly by the standards of a country where 49 percent of the 15 million population lives on two dollars a day or less.

Villagers like him, therefore, think the hydropower project will end their power woes.

But what Ton doesn’t know is that once the dam comes, the fish could become even more scarce, depriving Cambodians like him of their staple food and one of the most important sources of protein, say several NGOs.

“No one consults with the local community. They just say, ‘We are going to bring electricity to you’,” Ame Trandem of the International Rivers NGO tells IPS.

The government believes rural electrification is important “to reduce poverty, improve the standard of living and foster economic development,” as stated in a report earlier this year titled Rural Electrification Policies in Cambodia.

Its two-step target is: “(1) All the villages in the Kingdom of Cambodia have access to electricity of any type by the year 2020; and (2) At least 70 percent of all households have access to grid-quality electricity by the year 2030.”

The dam near Ton’s home is to be built at the junction of the Sesan and Srepok rivers.  The two rivers converge about 25 km upstream from Stung Treng city and are joined by the Sesong river before merging with the Mekong, in what is called the 3S River Basin.

Hydroelectric dams have been suggested as a resource for the electricity-hungry nation, and the declining fish catch has only helped support the cause of dams.

But fisheries expert Ian Baird finds this argument shortsighted. “Fish can rebound with management, but not if there are structures. After the Khmer Rouge banned commercial fishing in 1976, in Laos they reported record catches that season.”

During the famine in the 1970s, Cambodians did not have access to their staple protein – fish – due to government policies that forbade commercial fishing. This policy was also seen as contributing to the starvation and death of about two million people.

It serves as an example for how dependent the country is on fish as a source of protein. With malnutrition rates in children in Laos and Cambodia as high as 40 percent, Baird thinks putting pressure on the limited resources is a dangerous option.

Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, says most tribal people living in the watershed don’t have access to information. The indigenous Tampuan people have historically not had a written language.

A Laos-Tampuan himself, he experienced the consequences of dams after Vietnam built a hydropower dam upstream on Sesan at Yali Falls in 1996. Officials released water without notifying the communities downstream, causing numerous deaths and crop and livestock loss.

“Since the Vietnam dam was built, there have been less and less fish. Now there are almost none because the level of the river goes up and down so much,” says a Lao man in his 30s from Kalan village. “You can almost walk across the river in the dry season.”

Speaking with IPS from his small, wooden home, with an unused fish net hanging from the ceiling, he says, “We don’t want the dam because it causes floods, which kill crops and animals. We are afraid of the water.”

The three other Lao men with him agree, though they all decline to give their name for fear of repercussions from the government.

“We live in a remote area and people don’t know about us. Only 30 percent of the people here know about the dam. I hear about it from people further down the river,” he says.

They doubt that the project will bring cheap power.

Laos too is planning to build the Don Sahong dam on the Mekong river, just two kilometres from Cambodia’s border. The Mekong flows through a series of channels that become waterfalls before reaching Cambodia.

While the Lao government seeks to harness energy from just one channel and sell it to either Cambodia or Thailand, the dam will rest on one of the only year-round transit points for fish migration that could jeopardise the food security of Lower Mekong.

Despite this, a Lao tourism operator on an island adjacent to the dam site cheerfully tells IPS, “Most people want the dam.”

Baird says the government could jail villagers who speak against it.

After a recent site visit to speak with engineers of the Lao project, Cambodian officials came away uneasy about the environmental impact and insisted the project be halted, according to Trandem.

“The idea behind the Sesan dam was that Cambodia could benefit from its own dams,” says Trandem.

Vietnam was to invest in the venture as a kind of payback for the suffering inflicted on them earlier, and buy electricity from Cambodia. But after an outcry from Cambodians, who thought Vietnam would benefit yet again at their expense, Prime Minister Hun Sen declared that all the power generated would go to Cambodia.

“The problem is Cambodia has no way of using that electricity as it has no grid to transport it to the cities,” says Trandem.

Laos has the advantage of having a basic electrical grid in place, as does Vietnam, in contrast with Cambodia.

Trandem says, “The World Bank and Asian Development Bank proposed that the countries share electricity. But the trouble is there is no master plan for it – which is not good for countries that are dependent on rivers for everything.”