External report

Promoting Regional Watershed Governance and Distributive Justice for Downstream Burmese Communities This paper examines some of the current obstacles to watershed governance and distributive justice for the diverse ethnic communities in eastern Burma that rely upon the Lancang/Mekong and Nu/Salween Rivers for their economic livelihoods and cultural survival. More than two dozen largescale dams are planned for these two river systems. Nearly all of them will be built and/or financed by the People's Republic of China (PRC), although other non-state actors are also centrally involved. The p

This paper critically analyses one of Southeast Asia's gravest social and environmental challenges, the damming and dredging of the Mekong River system. This Paper delves into the conflict in the Mekong between countries' desire for hydroelectric power to satisfy soaring demand and the Mekong's fragile ecosystem and role as a primary food source. 

This paper describes the impacts of the Upper Mekong dams and Mekong navigation channel on the Mekong River hydrology and ecology and the livelihoods of communities living in Northern Thailand.

This study on the Sesan River identifies that major threats to sandbar nesting birds on the Sesan River are inundations of nests and chicks, reductions in breeding and foraging habitat, and reduction in food sources caused by the Yali Falls dam, together with predation of nests and chicks by animals, egg collection by villagers, and incidental disturbance by villagers and domestic animals. The report recommends that to minimize negative effects to sandbar nesting birds the Yali Falls dam should be operated to replicate the natural daily and seasonal flow cycle of the Sesan river.

Approximately 20,000 people in 3,500 families in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia are found to have experienced serious ecological and socio-economic impacts as a result of the construction of Yali Falls Dam, concludes this report, prepared in 2000. Impacts identified include severe flooding, irregular water fluctuations, deteriorated water quality, and fish catch decline. At least 32 people have drowned because of the modified river conditions.

For the better part of a decade, the story of the Cambodian communities along the Se San River in Ratanakiri has been one of development gone wrong. Since construction of Vietnam’s US$1 billion Yali Falls Dam the Se San River’s ecosystems have not been the same and the food security of those communities that depend on the river has vanished. This report by the Clinical Advocacy Project of Harvard’s Law School’s Human Rights Program, published by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, documents serious violations of international law caused by Vietnam’s construction of dams in

From September 2007 World Rivers Review China Exploits Mozambique's Ecosystems and Lax Policies "Cahora Bassa is ours" are the first words Mozambique’s president, Armando Guebuza, said after signing an agreement with Portugal’s prime minister to transfer ownership of the 27-year-old hydropower dam on the Zambezi. The last link to Mozambique’s colonisation by Portugal is finally broken, but are Mozambique’s new economic ties following a similar pattern of exploitation and abuse? Abusive economic interests are not something new in international relations,

There are more than 90 million people who do not have access to electricity within the six-country Mekong region. So when electricty utilities, government leaders, and multilateral development banks band together to promote a multi-billion dollar regional transmission grid, the question is will it serve those without electricity, and if not, then who will such a grid serve and for what purpose? In this Watershed Journal article, Grainne Ryder reviews the Mekong Power Grid plan.