From Thailand to China, Drought hits Mekong River – ReliefWeb (press release)

reliefweb.int

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/DNEO-83LJKH?OpenDocument

Source: Missionary International Service News Agency (MISNA)

Date: 16 Mar 2010

The significant lowering of the level of the Mekong River, among Asia’s main water courses stretching from the Tibetan highland to the southern coasts of Vietnam, is having “serious repercussions for inhabitants of northern Laos and Thailand”. The alarm was launched by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which is monitoring the water conditions in the areas crossed by the river. According to the MRC, “the severe drought will have an impact on agriculture, food security, access to fresh water, river transport and affect the economy and development of communities already affected by poverty”. The Mekong River Commission emphasised that river tourist routes between Houiesay and Luang Prabang, in Laos were already interrupted, and that the provincial administration of Yunan, in China, suspended cargo ship activity, with serious repercussions for regional trade. In some areas of Thailand, water levels dropped to 35cm, entirely impeding navigation. Thailand’s irrigation department has applied special measures for the preservation of water, though the worst-affected remain the rice producers and other farmers. According to the MRC, climate factors are at the cause of the drought: an early end to the monsoon season and since last September less rainfall.

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Myanmar: Mekong Drought Affects Shan Communities

Source: The Irrawaddy

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/DNEO-83MHJQ?OpenDocument

Date: 17 Mar 2010

A severe drought, which has been called the worst in half a century, is threatening people’s livelihoods in eastern Shan state where 234 kilometers of the Mekong River runs through Burma, according to organizations working in the area.

“The people who live along the river are facing the worst situation in a long time, which has severely affected their way of living,” Japhet Jakui, the director of the Lahu National Development Organisation (LNDO), told The Irrawaddy.

The organization, which closely monitors the Mekong River in Shan State, estimated that more than 22,000 indigenous people made up of Akha, Shan, Lahu, Sam Tao, Chinese and En communities, live by the river. Many have told LNDO that their river-side farming practices have suffered as a result of the drought.

In an attempt to lure more Chinese logging business into the region, the Burmese regime has forbidden local residents from cutting trees. Unable to clear land for rice paddy fields, more people have become dependent on the river-side areas for their survival, said Japhet Jakui.

The drought has also reduced the levels of fish in the Mekong as fluctuations in the water level have disrupted fishing migrations, according to residents. Local fishermen who survive off fish to feed their families have reported less fish, smaller fish and the disappearance of some species.

“The drought has meant that they are unable to fish or grow plants leaving many people too hungry and unable to travel freely,” said Japhet Jakui.

The majority of the communities work for Chinese businesses that have come into the area for logging. However, with river levels so low this has made it very difficult for logging to take place and LNDO reports that many residents have lost their jobs and income as river transport comes to a standstill.

Movement in the area has also been restricted since a drug gang clashed with Burmese troops making it difficult for locals to travel to other areas to find food. This has been made worse by an increased presence of soldiers in the area to increase security while cease-fire groups contest the regime’s border guard force proposal.

The river is reported to be dropping about 10 centimeters every day and is expected to get worse till May when the rain begins again, according to provincial meteorological stations in Yunnan and Guizhou.

Up stream in China, the river is so low that more than 20 boats have been grounded while navigating down the river. China’s marine affairs department has stopped issuing pass permits to vessels and repeatedly sent warnings to foreign vessels, telling them of the danger.

Twelve of the 14 cities in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are now affected by drought, the regional flood-control and drought relief authority announced on Monday.

NGO’s blame a series of hydro-power dams in China for creating regular water fluctuations.

“The drought is a result of the Chinese hydro power developments up stream. We can see water fluctuations in the river,” Khun Pianporn Deetes of Chiang Mai-based Living Rivers Siam told The Irrawaddy.

“In February, the water level was 12.5 cm, then in a week it was 30cm and then back again. This is not due to lack of rain. The fluctuations create lots of problems for the river.”

Downstream in Laos rice fields around the Mekong are suffering as the drought worsens and salt water has seeped into the fields, ruining crops.

At the end of February, a Lao Water and Environmental Resources official in Laos publicly accused Chinese dam operators of contributing to the low level of the Mekong by retaining water for irrigation and electricity generation. Four of eight dams have already been completed in China.

“If China doesn’t release water, we have a problem. We don’t have water for our tributary rivers either. The Nam Ou, Nam Khan, and Nam Xieng rivers are all dried up,” the official said.

“When China shuts its dam water gates, we in Laos cannot use our boats.”

However, the Mekong River Commission says the water shortage is largely a result of an early end to the 2009 rainy season and less rainfall during the past monsoon season.

“At this stage there is no indication that the existence of dams upstream has made the situation more extreme than the natural case,” The Associated Press quoted from commission report.

China declined an invitation to become a member of the Mekong River Commission and has long been criticized for its lack of transparency regarding its dams. Treating the dams as a national security issue, little detailed information has been released about the level of water the dams use.

In response to criticism, China has invited members of each of the four Mekong countries, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, to visit its Jinghong dam, one of four dams it operates on the river and observe their water management.

Khun Pianporn Deetes suggested that in order to prevent the same problems occurring next year there needs to more transparency between the countries in the Mekong basin.

“It’s most urgent that the Chinese government coordinates with downstream countries and exchanges information so we can prepare for the droughts by knowing how much water is being released. The ultimate goal is for China to stop the dams and allow the Mekong to flow naturally,” she said.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has asked for China’s help with the drought situation but hasn’t blamed China’s dams for the problems. Leaving behind demonstrations in Bangkok, he traveled this week to drought-affected areas in Phitsanulok and then traveledon to the Bhumibol Dam in Tak.

The Mekong supplies water to an estimated 65 million people as it winds its way through six countries.

ENVIRONMENT: Blame on Chinese Dams Rise as Mekong River Dries Up

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50696

Inter Press Service – Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Mar 17, 2010 (IPS) – As the water level in the Mekong River dips to a record 50-year low, a familiar pattern of fault-finding has risen to the surface. China, the regional giant through which parts of South-east Asia’s largest waterway flows through, is again at the receiving end of verbal salvoes from its neighbours.

Environmentalists and sections of the regional media are blaming the Chinese dams being built or operating on the upper reaches of the Mekong for contributing to the dramatic drop in water levels that are affecting communities in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, the lower Mekong countries.

“Changes to the Mekong River’s daily hydrology and sediment load since the early 1990s have already been linked to the operation of the (Chinese) dam cascade by academics,” states the Save the Mekong Coalition, a Bangkok-based network of activists and grassroots groups. “Communities downstream in northern Thailand, Burma and Laos have suffered loss of fish and aquatic plant resources impacting local economies and livelihoods.”

Newspapers in Thailand, which are freer and feistier than those in other countries across the region, have been more blunt. “China is fast failing the good-neighbour test in the current Mekong River crisis,” argued the English- language daily ‘Bangkok Post’ in a recent editorial. “The trouble is China’s unilateral decision to harness the Mekong with eight hydroelectric dams.”

Stung by this latest barrage of criticism, China has taken the unusual step of breaking its silence to mount its own defence, placing the blame for the drop in the Mekong River’s levels to the unusually harsh drought across this region.

As part of this shift in diplomacy to engage with the lower Mekong countries, one of Beijing’s envoys reminded critics that the water from China’s portion of the Mekong, which it calls the Lancang, accounts for less than a fifth of the volume of water in the river.

Therefore, his argument goes, what China does upstream cannot have such a big impact on water levels downstream.

“The average annual runoff volume of the Lancang River at the outbound point (of China) is approximately 64 billion cubic metres, accounting for only 13.5 percent of Mekong’s runoff volume at the (South China) sea outlet,” Chen Dehai of the Chinese embassy in Bangkok said at a press conference.

Chen’s defence came days after Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue told Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva during a visit to Bangkok that the upstream dams were not the reason for drop in water levels. “China would not do anything to damage mutual interest with neighbouring countries in the Mekong,” Hu was reported to have said, according to the Thai media.

Beijing’s attribution of low water levels to the drought, instead of its dams, has been endorsed by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter- governmental body that manages the river basin. “At this point we have no direct evidence that the drop in water levels is caused by the Chinese dams,” said Damian Kean, communications adviser to the MRC.

“There was very low rainfall during the wet season, which ended four weeks earlier than normal, in October,” Kean added during a telephone interview from Vientiane, the Lao capital, where the MRC is based. “MRC analysis has concluded that the current dry period and subsequent low water levels in the Mekong Basin were caused by some of the lowest rainfall in the region in over 50 years.”

But this does not wash with environmentalists like Carl Middleton, who argue that China’s lack of transparency about the volume of water it lets flow south has fed the suspicion that its dams are making current crisis worse. “If the dams are not contributing to loss of water level in the Mekong, then China should publicly release information of water level flows,” he told IPS.

“The Chinese have not disclosed information about the operations of its dams on the Mekong,” added Middleton, the Mekong programme coordinator of International Rivers, a U.S.-based environmental lobby. “You need proper information and data to manage a river basin.”

Although China does not supply information to the MRC about dry-season water flows, it has, after years of silence, been more forthcoming about hydrological information during the wet season, when there are floods. This followed the first agreement Beijing signed with the MRC in 2002.

China’s reluctance to cooperate with the MRC stems from it being an observer, rather than a member of the body, and therefore not bound by its agreements. Military-ruled Burma, or Myanmar, is the other observer in the commission, which groups Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

The 4,660-kilometre long Mekong river flows from the Tibetan plateau, through southern China’s Yunnan province, and passes Burma before journeying through the Mekong Basin shared by the four MRC members to empty out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam. Nearly 80 percent of the water that reaches the basin flows from tributaries in the lower Mekong.

China has already completed four of a cascade of eight dams, with the Xiaowan Dam, whose reservoir began harnessing the Mekong’s waters in October 2009, being described as “the world’s highest arch dam.”

But disquiet about the dams and their impact on the Mekong River’s ecosystem and fish catch has been rising since the first of these dams, the Manwan, came on line in 1992. Fishing is the main source of livelihood for the 60 million people living in the Mekong Basin, and the annual income from fisheries in the lower Mekong is between two to three billion U.S. dollars.

The year the Manwan dam began operations also saw a severe drought and drop in the Mekong’s water level, giving rise to the argument local communities and activists have held on to for nearly two decades – that China’s dams are linked to dramatic and erratic dips in the river’s water levels.

“The local communities along the river banks in northern Thailand believe that the change in the water levels began after the Chinese dams,” says Montree Chantavong of Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Bangkok-based environmental lobby. “It has impacted their fisheries activity.”

(END)

Lao Officials Threaten to Burn Shelters of Expelled Christians

Officials in southern Laos in the next 48 hours plan to burn temporary shelters built by expelled Christians unless they recant their faith, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100317/lao-officials-threaten-to-burn-shelters-of-expelled-christians/

Wed, Mar. 17, 2010 Posted: 12:21 PM EDT

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DUBLIN (Compass Direct News) – Officials in southern Laos in the next 48 hours plan to burn temporary shelters built by expelled Christians unless they recant their faith, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

Authorities including a religious affairs official, the district head, district police and the chief of Katin village in Ta-Oyl district, Saravan province, expelled the 48 Christians at gunpoint on Jan. 18.

Prior to the expulsion, officials raided a worship service, destroyed homes and belongings and demanded that the Christians renounce their faith.

Left to survive in the open, the Christians began to build temporary shelters, and then more permanent homes, on the edge of the jungle, according to HRWLRF. They continued to do so even after deputy district head Khammun, identified only by his surname, arrived at the site on Feb. 9 and ordered them to cease construction.

More officials arrived on Feb. 18 and ordered the Christians to cease building and either renounce their faith or relocate to another area. When the group insisted on retaining their Christian identity, the officials left in frustration.

On Monday (March 15), district head Bounma, identified only by his surname, summoned seven of the believers to his office, HRWLRF reported.

Bounma declared that although the republic’s law and constitution allowed for freedom of religious belief, he would not allow Christian beliefs and practices in areas under his control. If the Katin believers would not give up their faith, he said, they must relocate to a district where Christianity was tolerated.

When the seven Christians asked Bounma to supply them with a written eviction order, he refused.

The Christians later heard through local sources that the chiefs of Katin and neighboring Ta Loong village planned to burn down their temporary shelters and 11 partially-constructed homes erected on land owned by Ta Loong, according to HRWLRF.

These threats have left the Christians in a dilemma, as permission is required to move into another district.

Both adults and children in the group are also suffering from a lack of adequate food and shelter, according to HRWLRF.

“They are without light, food and clean water, except for a small stream nearby,” a spokesman said. Officials also forced them to leave the village with minimal clothing and other items necessary for basic survival.

Village officials have said they will only allow spirit worship in the area. A communist country, Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

Decree 92, promulgated in July 2002 by the prime minister to “manage and protect” religious activities in Laos, also declares the central government’s intent to “ensure the exercise of the right of Lao people to believe or not to believe.”

Compass Direct News
Sarah Page

Related:

• Lao Officials Force Christians from Worship at Gunpoint

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Laos mega-dam criticized by environmental groups begins operation

Laos mega-dam criticized by environmental groups begins operation CanadianBusiness.com

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D9EG525O3

BANGKOK (AP) – A mega-dam in Laos criticized by environmental groups and financed in part by the World Bank has begun to generate electricity for sale to Thailand, its operators said Wednesday.

The Nam Theun 2 dam began commercial export of 1,000 megawatts of electricity on Monday, with some also sold to the domestic power supplier, the company said in a statement.

Laos has argued that the dam and more than a half dozen others on the planning boards will help lift the country out of poverty, but environmental groups have criticized the project for spurring illegal logging, incursions into a bio-diverse region and relocations of villagers. Almost all the electricity from the dam will be sold to Thailand.

The $1.45 billion project, the Nam Theun 2 Power Co., is co-owned by Electricite de France, the Lao government, the Electricity Generating Public Co. of Thailand and Italian-Thai Development. The 1,439-foot (436-meter) -long dam, located about 150 miles (250 kilometers) east of the Lao capital, Vientiane, formed a 174-square mile (450-square kilometer) reservoir that has covered local villages.

Critics say the resettled villagers have been left without a way to earn a living.

The company has a 25-year concession during which it is to pay the Lao government some $2 billion in royalties, dividends and taxes. After 25 years, the dam is to be fully owned by the government.

Laos plans to build more than half a dozen dams, most on tributaries of the Mekong River which has suffered record-low water flows in recent years. These are blamed in part on massive mainstream dams built by China.