When asked to name different causes of deforestation, few people will mention hydroelectric dams as being one of them. Even fewer will include them as a cause of human rights violations. However, dams constitute a major direct and indirect cause of forest loss and most of them have resulted in widespread human rights abuses.
This lack of awareness can be explained by the fact that for many years large hydroelectric dams have been portrayed as synonymous with development. Another reason can be that most users of hydro-electricity live far away from the impacted areas and that the sites selected for dam building have been often those inhabited by indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and poor communities having little capacity of being heard by the wider national community.
Bulletin Issue 42 – January 2001
Hydroelectric dams
THE FOCUS OF THIS ISSUE: hydroelectric dams
For many years, local peoples and environmentalists have been opposing large dams due to the severe social and environmental impacts they entail. Since its creation, the WRM has been an active participant in the fight against dams, and included them as a major cause of forest loss already in its 1989 "Penang Declaration." During the past years, we have been trying to assist local peoples' struggles against dams and reflecting them in almost every issue of our bulletin ( all available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/dams.html ). We have now decided to dedicate an entire bulletin to this problem, with the aim of sharing information to enhance opposition to this destructive activity at a moment when, on the one hand, the World Commission on Dams has produced an extensive report detailing the damaging effect of large dams, and, on the other hand, when organizations worldwide are preparing an "International Day of Action against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life", to take place on March 14. We hope the bulletin will contribute to increase awareness and solidarity with the struggle.WRM Bulletin
42
January 2001
OUR VIEWPOINT
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
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13 January 2001The Sondu Miriu River is one of the six major rivers in the Lake Victoria basin, which drains 3,470 square kilometres in the western part of Kenya. The company responsible for managing all public power generation facilities in Kenya --KenGen-- is planning a dam project to be located about 400 kilometres from Nairobi. Water from the river will be diverted through a 7.2 kilometre long tunnel into a one million cubic meter reservoir and a 60 megawatt hydro power station.
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13 January 2001For over five years plans have been discussed by the Namibian and Angolan governments to dam the Kunene river, which runs through both countries, and construct a hydroelectric power station somewhere south of the Angolan border. The proposals have been dogged by controversy and delays from the outset and have developed into a saga, which has rumbled on and on without ever seeming to reach closer to a conclusion.
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13 January 2001The Ugandan government --backed by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, the US agency Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and a number of European export credit agencies (ECAs)-- is promoting the construction of a huge dam which, if implemented, will destroy the living space of thousands of local dwellers together with the scenic beauty and historical sites at the Bujagali falls region on the Upper Nile River. Responsible for the construction of this U$S 530 million hydroelectric dam is US-based AES corporation.
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13 January 2001The Bakun Dam project --the largest in Southeast Asia-- was originally planned by the Malaysian authorities in the early 1980s, abandoned in 1990, revived in 1993 and reshaped in 1997. The Bakun Hydroelectric Corporation is the owner and future operator of the dam. Lahmeyer International from Germany, Harza from the US and Dohg-Ah Construction and Industrial Co. from South Korea have been involved in the supervising of the works and the construction of the tunnel for the diversion of the waters. The main construction package of this multimillion dollar initiative was first granted to the Swiss-Swedish multinational ABB and the Companhia Brasileira de Projectos e Obras (CBPO), but in late 1997 problems arose and ABB was sacked from the project.
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13 January 2001The San Roque Dam is to be located on the lower Agno River of Pangasinan Province, in the Cordillera region of Luzon island in the Philippines. If built, San Roque would be the tallest dam --at 200 meters-- and largest private hydropower project in Asia, generating 345 megawatts of power. Electricity generated by the dam would be primarily used to power industrial activity and the burgeoning mining industry in northern Luzon. Preparation of the site began in 1998, and construction is slated for completion in 2004. San Roque is the third dam to be constructed on the Agno river: the first two, Binga and Ambuklao, were built in the 1950s.
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13 January 2001Over the past 30 years, activists have fought a long battle for institutions such as the World Bank to adopt social and environmental policies. However, these institutions are no longer the main source of public finance for ‘development’ projects in the South. Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) are now the largest public funders of large-scale infrastructure projects in southern countries, exceeding by far the infrastructure investments of multilateral development banks and bilateral aid agencies. Yet the majority of ECAs --with rare exceptions such as the US Export-Import Bank and the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation-- have no human rights, environmental and development standards.
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13 January 2001Vietnam's US $1 billion Yali Falls 720-megawatt hydroelectric dam, under construction for the past seven years -- with funding from the governments of Russia and Ukraine-- drains into the Se San river which runs through Cambodia to the Mekong. Before the dam-building began, no study was done of its environmental effect on Cambodia. A study recently carried out by the Fisheries Office, Ratanakiri Province, in cooperation with the Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Project, an NGO working in Ratanakiri Province, shows that the dam is bringing death, disease and environmental devastation to Cambodia even before it is fully working.
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13 January 2001Forced resettlement of local people living in the area where dams are built usually results in human rights abuses. One of the most terrible examples is that of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam, which was built during the military dictatorship in Guatemala. The project resulted in the massacre of more than 400 Maya Achi people, mostly from the community of Río Negro, one of the villages to be flooded by the dam.
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13 January 2001The Tocantins River is the main river in the hydrological system of the “cerrado” (savanna) and eastern Amazon region of Brazil. The Brazilian government is planning the construction of eight hydroelectric dams on the Tocantins and Araguaia Rivers. One of them is Cana Brava Dam, located 250 km north of Brasilia, in the state of Goiás, which together with the already operational Tucuruí Dam and the Serra da Mesa Dam will form a nearly continuous 2,000 km staircase of reservoirs.
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13 January 2001The Biobío River springs from Icalma and Galletue lakes in the Andes, in southern Chile and flows during 380 km through forests, agricultural lands and cities to the Pacific Ocean, draining a watershed of 24,260 km2. Over one million people use the resources of the Biobío for drinking and irrigation water, recreation, and fisheries.
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13 January 2001The Urrá Dam megaproject on the Sinú River in the Department of Córdoba, in the Colombian Atlantic region, constitutes a worldwide known environmental catastrophe as well as a complete disaster to the local people. The dam built by the company Urrá and openly supported by the Colombian government --which considers the project vital for the country's economy-- will flood more than 7,000 hectares of forests and directly affect the livelihoods and the very existence of the Embera Katío indigenous people and the fisherfolk communities of the area.
GENERAL
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13 January 2001The World Commission on Dams (WCD) released its report on November 2000, after having carried out detailed studies and surveys on a number of large dams throughout the world. What follows are quotes from the sections "People and Large Dams" and "Ecosystems and Large Dams." The full report --in several languages-- is available at: http://www.dams.org/report/ "In terms of the social impacts of dams, the Commission found that the negative effects were frequently neither adequately assessed nor accounted for. The range of these impacts is substantial, including on the lives, livelihoods and health of the affected communities dependent on the riverine environment:
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13 January 2001The international and national dam lobbyists have been fast to adapt their discourse to the changing world situation. Given the widespread concern over climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions, dam promoters are now stressing that hydroelectricity is a clean source of energy, thus being the best candidate to substitute fossil fuel-based energy sources. But: is it really clean? The existing research shows that hydropower is not only socially and environmentally destructive, but that it can also make a significant contribution to global warming, particularly in the tropics.
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13 January 2001Many people around the world are preparing an International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life, which will take place on March 14th, 2001. Last year, nearly 70 actions took place in 26 countries to celebrate the Day of Action. From Australia to Uganda, tens of thousands of people participated in demonstrations, rallies, educational events and ceremonies. Even more people are expected to participate this year.