In the Media

Originally published in the International Herald Tribune JIANMIN VILLAGE, China: Last year, Chinese officials celebrated the completion of the Three Gorges Dam by releasing a list of 10 world records. As in: The Three Gorges is the world's biggest dam, biggest power plant and biggest consumer of dirt, stone, concrete and steel. Ever. Even the project's official tally of 1.13 million displaced people made the list as record No. 10. Today, the Communist Party is hoping the dam does not become China's biggest folly. In recent weeks, Chinese officials have admitted that the dam was spawning enviro

Originally published in The Guardian As the huge reservoir behind China's controversial Three Gorges dam begins to fill up this weekend, an urgent rescue operation is being launched further upstream to save the dam from being choked by silt. The final go-ahead has been given for a new generation of four dams which are supposed to trap the silt on the Yangtze river's longest tributary, the Jinsha (Golden Sands) river. The scheme has been almost completely ignored so far in China and abroad. Alarmingly, it lies on the edge of a recognised seismic zone, a potential danger not mentioned in the few

Originally published in China Daily Construction began Sunday on a hydropower project in southwest China which will have a third of the capacity of the Three Gorges Project when completed in nine years. Power generation from the 6-gigawatt Xiangjiaba project, combined with the 12.6 gigawatt Xiluodu project on which construction started 11 months ago, would be the equivalent of the Three Gorges Project by 2015.  "The start of construction indicates the Xiangjiaba project, whose initial planning started as early as in 1957, has entered a new phase," said Fan Qixiang, vice-p

Experts in geology, water conservancy, and environmental protection have jointly appealed to authorities in Beijing to temporarily suspend the approval of big hydro dams in geologically unstable areas in southwest China, in the wake of the deadly May 12 earthquake. They argue that top priority should be given to doing a careful and detailed investigation of all dams and reservoirs in the disaster affected region, and that no more large scale dam projects should be approved before risk assessments of reservoirs in Sichuan are completed, the First Business Daily (Diyi caijing bao) reported on Ju

Opinion piece published by Reuters AlertNet A Lao man, his face and hands hardened by the sun and years of fishing, tends his water buffalo by the Theun River and wonders what his life will be like "after the flood". That's how he referred to the water that has now started rising behind the Nam Theun 2 dam, turning an area more than four times the size of Paris - including the land his family has tilled for generations - into a stagnant reservoir. Will he, and the more than 6,000 others who have been displaced, be better off thanks to the Nam Theun 2 hydropower project, as the Lao government,

Originally published in The Financial Times The modern world has never faced the threat of dangerous dams onanything like the scale of the crisis now unfolding in Sichuan in theaftermath of the earthquake two weeks ago, engineers say. In addition to about 380 existing man-made dams that were significantlydamaged by the 7.9-magnitude quake, the Chinese authorities are facedwith an estimated 35 new "natural" dams formed when hills and mountainscollapsed into rivers, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The greatest immediate threat comes from the Tangjiashan "quake lake"on the Jianhe R

The presence of so many dams near the epicenter in Sichuan province hascomplicated rescue and recovery efforts. Some even say that dams can causequakes. Originally published in the Los Angeles Times BEIJING -- Mao Tse-tung famously declared "man must conquer nature," andhis political heirs have followed his dictum zealously by building damsand other gigantic projects that have altered the landscape of China. But this month's deadly earthquake may tilt the balance of public opinionin favor of a more cautious and environmentally conscious approach to suchdevelopment. China has more dams than an

Originally published in the Inter Press Service News Agency DUJIANGYAN, Jun 25 (IPS) - China's deadly earthquake last monthappears to have shifted more than just tectonic plates in thecountry's picturesque Sichuan province. The May 12 temblor has given aboost to China's green lobby that has been calling for a review ofBeijing's zealous dam-building programme and may tilt the balance ofpublic opinion in favour of such appeals. When the quake struck, it came in an area famous for ancienthydrological works. Sichuan is the homeland of Da Yu, the legendaryChinese emperor who won his right to the

Opinion piece published in Thailand's The Nation A Lao man, his face and hands hardened by the sun after years of fishing and farming, tends his water buffalo by the Theun River and wonders what his life will be like "after the flood". That's how he referred to the water that has now started rising behind the Nam Theun 2 dam in central Laos. Will he, and the thousands of others who have been displaced, be better off thanks to the Nam Theun 2 hydropower project, as the Lao government, the dam developers and the World Bank contend? Or will he and his children face an uncertain future of rice sho

Scientists want review of major hydroelectric projects in unstable areas Originally published in the South China Morning Post Mainland experts, environmental groups and activists have urged thegovernment to review plans to build big dams in the earthquake-pronesouthwest.An open letter issued yesterday appealed to mainland authorities tolaunch risk assessments of big hydropower projects in quake-devastatedSichuan and neighbouring Yunnan before giving the go-ahead to thebuilding of more dams in geologically unstable areas. The letter came after a survey by the Ministry of Water Resourcesreveale