Last Days of the Mighty Mekong by Brian Eyler;

Author:Brian Eyler;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)
Published: 2018-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

In response to concerns raised both locally and internationally, Laos’s Ministry of Energy and Mines produced a fact sheet called “Don Sahong Made Simple: Questions and Answers about the Don Sahong Power Project” and distributed on its official website. The Ministry of Energy and Mines is the line agency responsible for energy and hydropower development in Laos.4 It is unknown from which source the questions addressed oriented, but the answers are myopic and unreferenced. Three questions and their official answers are listed below.

Q. What are the biggest threats facing the dolphin population?

A. The real risks to dolphin survival in the Mekong, have been well documented. They are: disturbance from tourism activities; gill nets and other fishing gear; and an unexplained high mortality rates of calves and juveniles.5

Q. Will DSHPP [Don Sahong Power Project] cut off one – some say the only – fish migration route across the Khone falls, harming the food security of millions of people in the region?

A. The fact is there are several other channels that support fish migration in the dry season, and the project research indicates that other channels can and will be modified to accommodate more fish migrations in both directions in both seasons. The statement that the food security of “millions of people” will suffer is pure speculation and exaggeration designed to scare the public and win support for anti-dam groups. Extensive studies and investigations confirm that the proposed project will cause no significant impact to the full mainstream flow of the Mekong; nor will it affect fish migration or sediment passage to any degree that would harm downstream communities. Furthermore, the Lao people also rely on the Mekong for their livelihood and we intend to enhance and improve their lives and the lives of their children as well as the fisheries sustainability of the area.6

Q. Fishermen say the amount of fish they catch above and below Khone Falls has been declining for years. Won’t a dam on Hou Sahong make things worse for them?

A. There are several factors behind the decline in dry season catches in the region. First, because of climate change, the dry season is longer and there is less water in the dry season. Second, there is more water usage in the dry season due to irrigation, agriculture, domestic and industrial use by more and more people. Due to population growth, changes in fishing gear, enlarged fish traps, and market demand overfishing takes place all the way from Cambodia’s Tonle Sap to Khone Falls. With so many fish traps and without environmentally sound regulations and conservation enforcement, fewer fish are reaching feeding grounds and spawning grounds. When these impacts are remedied, fish will return to the channels.

The fact sheet also implies that the dam’s management team can actually improve fish conservation efforts, given the claim that the major threat to Siphandone fisheries is overfishing and not the dam’s blocking of the channel. To cover all bases, the document does state “However, if all else fails (re fish passage promotion) the government of Laos will ask the Developer to decommission the dam.

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