A Chinese-backed plan for Cambodia to build the Mekong River’s biggest dam would destroy fisheries that feed millions and worsen tensions with Vietnam, the downstream country with most to lose from dams on the waterway, according to a three-year study commissioned by the Cambodian government.
The report, posted earlier this month on the Web site of the US-based organization that conducted the study, said the Sambor Dam would “generate large power benefits to Cambodia, but at the probable cost of the destruction of the Mekong fishery and the certain enmity of Vietnam.”
The dam designed by China Southern Power Grid Co would have a 620km2 reservoir and dwarf the biggest dam currently being built on the Mekong, the Xayaburi Dam in Laos, which was bitterly opposed by environmentalists for years, it said.
The Natural Heritage Institute experts who authored the report, submitted to the Cambodian government late last year, recommended that it defer the project while studying “better” alternatives, such as using solar power to augment existing hydroelectric dams.
Alternative sites upstream where the Mekong separates into several channels are possible, but are either financially unfeasible or only marginally less destructive than the site currently envisaged for the 2,600 megawatt dam, the study said.
Possible mitigation measures are either unproven or have a poor track record, it added.
According to the report, the dam would block fish migration from the giant Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, which is crucial for reproduction and replenishing what scientists have said is the most productive freshwater fishery in the world.
It would also prevent riverbed sediment that fertilizes the Mekong Delta rice bowl from moving downriver, a particular problem for Vietnam, where delta farmlands are being destroyed by saltwater incursion from the sea, it said.
“The dam and the reservoir would create a barrier that would be devastating for the migratory fish stocks,” the study said.
It also warned that a population of about 80 critically endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins would likely be wiped out, because the deep river pools they use as a dry-season refuge would become filled with sediment blocked by the dam.
The Cambodian government, closely allied with Beijing and the recipient of substantial Chinese aid and investment, has not publicly commented on the report.
Seven dams that China built on the Mekong headwaters in its territory are already a headache for Southeast Asian countries, reducing the amount of sediment floating downstream by as much as half, researchers said.
The Chinese dams were blamed for exacerbating a Southeast Asian drought in 2016, but countries in the region are pressing ahead with plans for Chinese companies to build a slew of other Mekong dams to meet growing demand for energy.
Laos, one of the poorest countries in Asia, is pinning development hopes on becoming a source of power for its neighbors.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion