The Last Farewell to the Mighty Mekong

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From The Diplomat

The shrinking Tonle Sap, the river’s “beating heart,” is the latest wake-up call of the damage wrought by dams.

By Tom Fawthrop

The miracle of the Mekong, where the pulsating force of the monsoon-driven river every year pushes its tributary to back up and reverse its flow into the great Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, has again been disrupted and obstructed by dams, drought, and climate change.

“This is a terrible disaster for the whole Mekong region,” Thai academic Chainarong Setthachua declared. He told The Diplomat, “If we lose the Tonle Sap we lose the heart of the biggest inland fisheries in the world.”

The lake is a critical fishing ground for Cambodia, as well as supporting fish migrations along the entire Mekong. Back in 2014, Chheng Phen, the former director of Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, told the New York Times, “If the Tonle Sap does not function,” he said, “then the whole fishery of the Mekong will collapse.” That is exactly what the Mekong region is facing today.

For the second year running, the wild pulsating waters of the Mekong have failed to work their traditional monsoon magic, which in normal times empowers the Tonle Sap lake to expand to five times its dry season size.

The Tonle Sap’s area before (left) and after the annual flooding expands its banks. Image courtesy of Eureka Films.

It is hard to exaggerate the extent of the unfolding disaster caused primarily by Chinese dams upstream, trapping both water and sediment that is vital to the healthy survival of the Mekong ecosystem.

The Tonle Sap crisis has also been greatly exacerbated by the two Lao dams – the Xayaburi dam and the Don Sahong launched in 2019 – that have blocked fish movement and sediment. Thailand and Malaysia are the developers and prime investors for those projects.

The Mekong-driven reverse flow had for centuries transformed the Tonle Sap lake, flooding what was once a sizable forest into part of the largest inland lake in Southeast Asia. In normal times the arrival of the rainy season flood and the reversal of the Tonle Sap tributary replenishes an amazing nursery of the fisheries by giving birth to the flooded forest of the lake.

But in 2020, like last year, too little water arrived and too late in the five-month rainy season from June to October. In 2019 the belated arrival of the flood pulse in mid-August led to the influx of shallow, warm, oxygen-starved waters and countless thousands of dead fish.

The same drought syndrome is happening again in 2020, with the damaged Mekong monsoon flow too weak push the Tonle Sap tributary back into the lake until mid-August (in a normal year it starts in June).

The Stimson Foundation’s Mekong specialist Brian Eyler recalled the wider  impacts of last year’s disaster, now repeating itself: “The Tonle Sap’s 2.5 million fishermen took on higher levels of debt to cope with the extremely low fish catch. Now in 2020 it is maybe worse. These cycles of high debt and low fish catch can only be repeated so many times before the economy around the lake and likely the country itself begins to fall apart.”

Senglong Youk, the Tonle Sap team leader of local NGO FACT (Fisheries Action Coalition), estimates that 20-30 percent of all fishermen have abandoned their livelihood to look for alternative employment.

Eyler, who is also the author of “The Last Days of the Mighty Mekong,” closely monitors China’s dams upstream. His research has now confirmed that “Chinese dams in July 2020 began to restrict an unprecedented amount of water while the countries downstream suffered drought in a repeat performance of last year.”

While the Chinese government and the Mekong River Commission (MRC) have claimed the primary causes of the drought are extra low rainfall and the El Nino effect, several studies have convincingly shown that these factors are far less important in causing the decimation of lower Mekong fisheries than the rapid expansion of  hydropower.

A  2013 study from Aalto University in Finland conducted by Timo Rasanen demonstrated the impacts of upstream dams far outweighed climate change in its effects on the Tonle Sap lake.

Ian Cowx, director of Hull University’s International Fisheries Institute (HIFI) in the U.K., explained via email that the biggest long-term obstacle to the recovery of fisheries would not come from climate change and this drought, but rather from the dams upstream.

“All fish species are adapted to periods of droughts and floods,” he wrote. “The big issue here is the reduction in flows caused by Chinese dams, the Lower Sesan 2 dam [on a Mekong tributary in Cambodia], and the loss of the Hou Sahong channel because of Don Sahong dam.”

All these dams – not only the Chinese but also Thailand’s massive Xayaburi dam in Laos and the Malaysian-promoted Don Sahong dam – have changed the hydrology flow of the river and undermined the flood-pulse.

Continues at

 

https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/the-last-farewell-to-the-mighty-mekong/

(Tom Fawthrop, based in Southeast Asia, has been a regular contributor to the Guardian, Economist, South China Morning Post, and The Diplomat for many years)

 

 

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From Coconuts Bangkok

Thailand urged to defend Mekong against Sanakham dam project

The Mekong River in Chiang Khan district, Thailand. Photo: Engdao Wichitpunya / Alamy

By Ryn Jirenuwat and Tyler Roney

“Water rises so fast and drops so fast because the water doesn’t flow naturally… It has huge impacts on us. It’s hard to catch any fish, and the fish cannot lay eggs,” said Prayoon Saen-ae, 62, head of a local fishermen group in Chiang Khan district, northern Thailand.

The Mekong River Commission officially began a six-month prior consultation phase for the China-backed Sanakham dam on July 30. Thai activists find themselves fighting against the hydropower project just two kilometers from the border with Laos.

The 684MW project is to be developed by a subsidiary of Datang International Power Generation, a state-owned Chinese power company, and is slated for completion in 2028. With seven planned Mekong mainstream dam projects in Laos, excluding the already operational Xayaburi dam, Sanakham is the sixth Lower Mekong dam to undergo prior consultation, a process in which affected nations can weigh in with nonbinding feedback.

“We protested against the Xayaburi project, and it is hard to protest because it is on their soil – not ours” said Prayoon, a lifelong resident of Chiang Khan.

He said he’s “slightly mad at [the Thai government] because we can’t do anything about it. When we protested against the Xayaburi dam, the Thai government couldn’t help us with anything. They always come up with excuses.”

He said NGOs are the only ones who come to talk to him about the dam.

The Mekong commission’s Joint Committee Working Group rejected documents for the prior consultation step and sent them back to the Laos government for revision, citing “out of date” information, but neither the MRC nor the Thai authorities can stop the dam.

“The villagers are aware of this dam, but they just don’t know what to do about it,” said Channarong Wongla, 50, of the Rak Chiang Khan Conservation Group. “We exchange information and inform the villagers through the messaging app Line and on Facebook groups.”

Laos’ use of the Mekong and its tributaries to become the “battery of Asia” has caused difficulties in the transboundary governance of water resources. There are several new dams proposed upstream of Sanakham, including China-backed projects at Pak Lay and Pak Beng, and the Vietnam-funded Luang Prabang dam. On the Nam Ou, a tributary responsible for important sediment reaching the Mekong, Laos has a cascade of seven planned and completed hydropower projects with little environmental oversight.

The lack of press freedom and civil society in Laos has put Thailand’s activists in a unique position to speak out against the construction of the $2 billion Sanakham dam.

Continues at

https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/thailand-urged-to-defend-mekong-against-sanakham-dam-project/