Ian Baird, executive director of Global Association for People and the Environment and recently chosen for inclusion in the 2008-2009 Princeton Premier Registry, has launched a letter campaign against the Don Sahong Dam in southern Laos. The text of the letter is below. Those interested in signing can contact Ian at ianbaird@shaw.ca.
It’s hard not sympathise with a campaign like this, and there is certainly a strong need for greatly improved social and environmental management of major infrastructure development in Laos. I encourage New Mandala readers who want to add their name to contact Ian.
But I am a little uncomfortable about a couple of things. First, the “independent scientific paper” referred to in the letter appears to be a self-published report by Ian himself. Given the rather technical nature of the fisheries issues involved, a peer reviewed paper would add much more strength to the campaign.
Second, the letter concludes by calling for approaches that would “prioritize alternative options for meeting Laos’ development needs, options that would in fact increase people’s food security and decrease poverty.” I would like to see a little more detail on what those options might be.
[UPDATE 21 August 2009. See the comments below. This is a draft text. Ian Baird has advised NM that the final signed text will be released on 26 August.]
[UPDATE 2 27 August 2009. Here is a copy of the final signed letter.]
OPEN LETTER To Interested Persons:
We the undersigned scientists, fisheries specialists, nutritionists and development workers, are writing to express our concern about plans to construct the Don Sahong Dam across the Hou Sahong channel in the Khone Falls area of Khong District, Champasak Province, southern Laos. We believe the project will have grave consequences for regional fisheries and the food security and livelihood of millions of people in the Mekong River Basin.
According to an independent scientific paper recently released, the Don Sahong project would block migrations of many important fish species that move up and down the Mekong River past the Khone Falls at various times of the year. Through fieldwork and a review of the available scientific literature, the paper reveals that many fish species migrate very long distances through the Hou Sahong Channel to upstream areas, where they form an important part of the diet of local people. The paper concludes that through blocking the migration of these fish, there is a “high risk that the dam could cause serious impacts to fisheries both far upstream and downstream from the Khone Falls, in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam, thus jeopardising the livelihoods of large numbers of people.”
According to the paper, the mitigation measures proposed in the project’s draft environmental impact assessment are unlikely to be effective. There is no known fish pass that could cope with the unique biological requirements of all the fish species that migrate past the Khone Falls each year. The proposal to widen the Hou Sadam is also likely to be ineffective because it would require major engineering works that would be extremely costly.
The paper concludes that fisheries losses in the region, and especially in Laos and Cambodia, could negatively impact the nutritional status of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people dependent on these fisheries, thus affecting the health of a large number of people. Figures indicate that in Stung Treng Province of Cambodia, almost 45% of children under five years old are underweight. As Cambodians depend on fisheries for the majority of their protein needs, losing a large quantity of wild-caught fish due to the Don Sahong Dam would further exacerbate the situation.
In Laos, recent research by the World Food Programme (WFP) has found that Laos’ rural population is experiencing serious nutritional problems, with 50% of all children being chronically malnourished. The Lao people are particularly lacking in meat, fish and edible oils, the exact food types that are threatened by the dam. If the dam causes even a 10% reduction in fisheries in central and southern Laos, the areas expected to be most seriously impacted by the Don Sahong Dam, this could have a serious impact on the nutritional status of people already living at the margins of food security.
For these reasons, we are concerned that the Don Sahong Dam would cause more problems than it would bring benefits to the Lao people, or other peoples in the region. If the dam goes forward, the corresponding drop in nutritional status for Lao and Cambodian citizens could result in setbacks in government and international donor efforts to alleviate poverty and meet various health-related United Nations Millennium Development goals. It could also negatively affect the nutritional status of people in Thailand and Viet Nam. This is a risk that we simply do not believe is worth taking.
We urge you to reconsider the development of the Don Sahong Dam and to prioritize alternative options for meeting Laos’ development needs, options that would in fact increase people’s food security and decrease poverty, rather than causing the opposite effect.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Ian Baird // Aug 21, 2009 at 8:44 am
Thank you for taking interest in this issue, but it would have been good if you’d asked before posting the letter. It would be better to post the final version, together with all the signatures. It will be released on August 26.
As for the report, it is at present just an independently produced report, as you have correctly pointed out. Yes, I agree that it would be good to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. That, in fact, is the plan, and I will be pursuing that option over the coming months. If you check my references within the report, you will see that I generally publish the results of my fisheries studies in peer reviewed journals. I have published many papers about fisheries in the Khone Falls area. However, the paper will need to be shortened for a journal. Also, it frequently takes 1-2 years to publish an article in a journal. That might be too late for decision-makers presently considering whether to proceed with the Don Sahong Dam. Therefore, I decided to release the report now before trying to publish it in a journal, so that people have access to the information at this crucial time.The report has already been released and is publically available at:
http://polisproject.org/PDFs/Baird%202009_Don%20Sahong.pdf
There is much that could be written about alternatives to the Don Sahong Dam. Crucially, the project is presently planned for the only channel in the Khone Falls area that fish can easily migrate up all year (no waterfalls on the channel). There are, however, many other channels in the Khone Falls area that fish cannot migrate up anyway (waterfalls naturally obstruct migrations). Those channels would certainly represent much less damaging options for dam development. Building a dam on the only channel that important fish stocks use to migrate upriver doesn’t make much sense. In addition, building large dams on the mainstream Mekong River is, in my view, not a very good option for many reasons. I would not go into details here, as it would take an extra paper in itself to adequately address all the relevant issues. However, crucially, the Don Sahong Dam could set a precedent for constructing other destructive dams on the mainstream Mekong River. So far, there are no dams on the lower and middle mainstream Mekong River. There are, however, some on the mainstream Mekong River in China.
2 Andrew Walker // Aug 21, 2009 at 10:11 am
Thanks Ian, I only posted the letter after seeing that it had been widely circulated (at your request?) on a public email list. I assumed that it was then in the public domain. I have inserted a clarification above and, of course, if you send me the final signed letter after 26 August I am happy to post it.
3 The Prince // Aug 21, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ian, can you tell us about the Princeton Premier Registry. Sounds great and I would like to apply, but when I google it a lot of people are saying that it is a scam???!!! Tell me it’s not true.
http://blogpond.com.au/2008/02/21/princeton-premier/
4 Ian Baird // Aug 24, 2009 at 12:13 pm
In my opinion, Princeton Premier is indeed a scam. I have been trying to get them to remove any mention of me from their so-called registry, but so far I have not been successful.
I did not contact them initially, they contacted me. I wish I had learnt it was a scam earlier.
5 Andrew Walker // Aug 27, 2009 at 3:15 pm
The final, signed, copy of the letter is now available here:
6 Andrew Walker // Aug 27, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The report by Ian Baird is available here.
7 Keith Barney // Aug 29, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Hi Andrew/New Mandala:
Thank you for raising this important and complex issue.
You wrote: “the letter concludes by calling for approaches that would ‘prioritize alternative options for meeting Laos’ development needs, options that would in fact increase people’s food security and decrease poverty.’ I would like to see a little more detail on what those options might be.”
To my mind some of the most compelling research conducted recently on food security and rural poverty in rural Laos, comes from Jutta Krahn’s research and the World Food Program’s 2007 study. Ian Baird cites this study in the Don Sahong report.
The main conclusions from the WFP work are worth consideration.
The research suggests that the current model of promoting foreign direct investment into resource megaprojects in Laos, has not, to date, resulted in a broad-based improvement in food security or nutrition in the countryside.
It seems to me that instead of demanding more details on the options and alternatives to hydropower megaprojects (there are many good options and local initiatives), the onus should rather be upon the proponents of hydropower megaprojects, to provide legally enforceable guarantees, based on detailed, nationally and independently reviewed plans, studies, impact assessments, and baseline research, that their projects— which will inevitably undermine wild fishery stocks— will yet produce overall improvements in local nutrition, food security, incomes, and development options for immediately affected communities, while also providing solutions to the broader problems with child malnourishment and underdevelopment in rural and upland areas.
Given the track record in Laos and the Mekong region, with uncompensated and unmitigated socio-ecological externalities from large-scale hydropower development, including Nam Theun II, I would argue that the weight of existing evidence still favours the hydropower skeptics.
But perhaps others have some arguments which would be worth hearing?
Sincerely,
– Keith Barney
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Lao PDR: Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) (2007, World Food Programme)
Available at:
http://www.wfp.org/content/laos-comprehensive-food-security-vulnerability-analysis-cfsva
Selection of main conclusion:
• Chronic malnutrition in rural Lao PDR is alarmingly high. Every second child in the rural areas is chronically malnourished, affecting not only their physical development but also their cognitive capacity.
• The steady economic growth that Lao PDR has experienced over the past 15 years, has not translated into improved nutritional status of the rural Lao population. Chronic malnutrition is as high today as it was ten years ago.
• Thirteen percent of the rural households have poor food consumption (at harvest time).
• Two thirds of the rural households have a livelihood portfolio that puts them at risk of becoming food insecure should one or more shocks occur in a given year.
• Dietary intake of fat is too low. Use of vegetable oil in the diet is rare, and most of the fat comes from animal sources.
• Managed access to wild meat and aquatic resources (animal protein) is critical for ensuring food security for vulnerable groups. Wild meat and aquatic resources, especially wild fish, is the biggest source of animal protein in rural Lao PDR. Consumption of domesticated animals can currently not compensate for a potential
loss of access to and availability of wildlife.
Rapid changes in rural Laos, especially in the uplands, are also being driven by other forces that include fast-rising agribusiness (such as large scale plantations of rubber, corn, sugar cane), mining and hydropower development, and other foreign direct investments. The potentials but also potentially adverse effects of these livelihood changes on the Lao people and their particular link to food security and malnutrition have to be evaluated in depth and their evolution closely monitored.
The analysis shows that the main food group that differentiates households with acceptable food consumption from households with poor or borderline food consumption is animal protein, mostly wild fish and meats. Access to such food sources is therefore critical in ensuring acceptable food consumption. Promotion of a higher intake of fruits, oil and fat would also be highly desirable.
Children’s nutritional status
The level of chronic malnutrition, or stunting, is alarmingly high in Lao PDR. Every second rural child under 5 years of age is stunted. The survey shows that 38 percent of rural children under 5 are underweight. Wasting is at 8 percent for the same group. There has been no improvement in the chronic malnutrition in Lao PDR over the past 10 years. A small reduction in underweight has been noted, and some reduction in wasting. These reductions are positive, but the persistently high chronic malnutrition rate remains a big challenge.
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