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televisionThe mighty Mekong River stretches about 4,350 kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau through China’s Yunnan Province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea. About 60 million people depend on Southeast Asia’s longest waterway, but plans to build hydroelectric dams in southern Laos are threatening their livelihoods and could also spell disaster for one of the world’s most mysterious creatures: the Irrawaddy dolphin.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), there are only about 85 Irrawaddy dolphins left in the Mekong River, which are closely related to killer whales and have distinctive round snouts. They occupy a 190-kilometer stretch near the Lao government’s planned 260-megawatt Dong Sahong Dam.
“The planned construction of the Don Sahong Dam in the waterway upstream of these dolphins could accelerate their disappearance from the Mekong.” explain Chhith Sam Ath, director of WWF Cambodia in late February.
According to the World Wildlife Fund PaperConstruction will require the use of explosives to excavate millions of tons of rock, which will generate sound waves powerful enough to kill dolphins. Increased boat traffic, water pollution and habitat degradation are other major risks to dolphins, which are already vulnerable to low survival rates of their young and accidental entanglement with garbage or fishing equipment.
Known as the ‘4000 Islands’, this amazing area also houses Asia’s largest waterfall, the Khone Phapheng Falls, a popular tourist attraction along with dolphins. It is here that the Mekong River splits into multiple channels, the largest of which is the Hou Sa Hong River, which will be used for the construction of the dam.
The Mekong River, second only to the Amazon in biodiversity, is home to more than 1,200 different fish species. Some 80 to 90 percent of these use the Housahong route to move upstream; hindering their progress could devastate the world’s largest inland fishery.
“We think this is going to have a significant impact on the fishery.” explain In January this year, Le Duc Trung, head of the Vietnamese Mekong River Commission delegation, said: “It is impossible [substitute] Reconstructing waterways to facilitate upstream migration of fish [for] The existing Housahun.”
Developing hydropower potential is a major policy pillar of Laos’ communist government, which has ambitious plans to build up to 60 dams and turn the landlocked country into the “battery of Southeast Asia,” according to Minister of Industry and Trade Nam Viakyi. “We can sell our energy to our neighbors,” he told a conference in 2010. interview. “Laos can be rich.”
But critics insist that the relatively modest 260 megawatts of electricity that Don Sahong will provide doesn’t justify the enormous risks it entails. (In 2010, China’s Three Gorges Dam produced 70 times as much.) “Compared to the impacts this dam is likely to have, the benefits are arguably negligible,” Pianporn Deetes, local coordinator for the NGO International Rivers, told TIME.
WWF advocates exploring alternatives such as Project Taco, which Pianporn said “could generate roughly the same amount of electricity as Project Taco but at a lower cost and with a much lower impact because it does not involve building on any channel Obstacle.” Mainstream of the Mekong River. “
The Mekong River Commission meets in Hanoi early next month and has agreed to hold ministerial discussions. But even if objections are raised to the project, as is likely, there is no guarantee it will be stopped. A larger Xayaburi dam in northern Laos is already well under construction, although it has not yet been approved by the commission.
In fact, “according to our field research, no construction [at Don Sahong] “But they are making preparations; building bridges, building access roads, notifying villagers to prepare for relocation,” Piampone said.
Gerry Ryan, technical adviser to WWF Cambodia, added: “It is not too late to pause the Don Sahong project and consider smarter alternatives. Construction of the project will almost certainly lead to the extinction of dolphins and threaten critical fisheries.”
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