As a nation in the lower Mekong River basin, Vietnam potentially bears serious impacts from programmes and development projects deployed on the mainstream of the upper river, and therefore needs to put forward solutions to deal with different development scenarios…
In what was apparently a face-saving move, Vietnam opted to withdraw its nomination of a major national park for UNESCO heritage status two days ahead of an annual session that opened June 16 in Cambodia. But even if Vietnam had gone ahead with nominating the Cat Tien National Park, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization would have probably rejected it following a recommendation to the effect by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
By normal standards, the scrapping of two controversial dams planned in a protected area should have been a done deal by now. But victories for the environment have become extremely rare in Vietnam in recent years and opponents of the two dams, to be built in the core of the UNESCO-recognized Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve, appear to be seeing the writing on the wall.
For those who had believed that Laos would stick to its pledge to shelve construction of the controversial Xayaburi dam, November 7 was a black day. It was on that day that Laos broke ground on the US$3.8-billion project despite vehement objections from environmental groups and its neighbors who said the 810-meter (2,600ft) dam would unleash massive ecological changes on a river that feeds around 60 million people.
The controversy over the flawed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) done for the Song Tranh Dam, now blamed for causing many tremors and quakes in the central province of Quang Nam since last November, has exposed major problems in the assessment and approval process of such projects.
Critics say new scorecard to evaluate social and environmental impacts of hydropower projects serves dam builders not local communities.
Wide-ranging coalition calls for the dam to be cancelled. A crucial meeting takes place tomorrow in Siem Reap, Cambodia, among the ministers of the Mekong River Commission on whether to proceed with the US$3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam, the first of…
People are trying to build more and more hydropower plants to satisfy their thirst for power. However, when power plants are set up, the environment gets degrading and the tourism industry cannot develop.
With hydropower running amok in this country, local critics of neighboring dam projects are throwing stones in a glass house. A view of the Cat Tien National Park, where two planned hydropower projects, if built, would encroach on around 140…
As ASEAN leaders meet for the 18th ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Save the Mekong coalition calls on ASEAN leaders to act immediately to cancel the Xayaburi Dam in Lao PDR.