A Healthy Mekong River is Priceless

The timeless rhythm of the Mekong’s seasonal cycles has nourished and inspired the peoples of the region for millennia. Yet this priceless, life-giving river is now under threat.

Since mid-2006, the governments of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand have granted approval to Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Chinese companies to investigate a cascade of eight large hydropower dams on the river’s mainstream. These projects threaten the river’s ecological health, including its rich fisheries upon which millions of people depend.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) held a consultation for its Hydropower Program in Vientiane on 25 September. International Rivers’ Carl Middleton was there to give a presentation on the threats to the Mekong River Basin from hydropower developments.

Until now, the MRC has been publicly silent on the threats posed by mainstream dams. As a first step, the MRC and its funders should identify the standards that they will work to uphold, which should be in-line with the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams.

The Don Sahong Dam is the first mainstream dam planned. Located in the Khone Falls area of southern Laos, the dam would block the main channel passable year-round by fish migrating between Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, threatening vital subsistence and commercial fisheries in the lower Mekong Basin.

Mekong mainstream dams like Don Sahong just don’t add up. In a region where wild-capture fisheries are of critical importance to riparian communities, these dams threaten to undermine food security and the region’s fishery- and tourism-based economies. International Rivers is working with partners in the region and internationally to keep the lower Mekong River's mainstream flowing freely.

• Photo slideshow by award-winning Thai photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin documenting local fishers’ lives in the Khone Falls area 
• “A Healthy Mekong River? Priceless”: Commentary in World Rivers Review, Sept 2008
• International Rivers’ new report “Power Surge: The Impacts of Rapid Dam Development in Laos”
• Fact sheet on Don Sahong Dam (English and Khmer)
• Carl Middleton, International Rivers’ Mekong Program Coordinator, presentation to MRC Hydropower Consultation
  
• Thai Peoples Network and Rivers Coalition in Cambodia statement to MRC (24 Sept 2008)