by Piyaporn Hawiset
16 November 2002
State projects spoiling river, seminar told
The Mekong River Commission had applied inappropriate management models that led to environmental damage and severe degradation of the Mekong river, it was revealed. The commission had been acting as if it were a "middleman" encouraging investors and lenders, such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, to implement destructive projects in the Greater Mekong Sub-region because member sof the commission and their cronies made a lot of money from the projects, said Premrudee Daoroung, director of Toward Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (Terra), a Bangkok-based non-government organisation.
Ms Premrudee was speaking at a five-day conference on River Basin Development in the Mekong Region, held in Ubon Ratchathani during the first week of November 2002.
Mekong River Commission (MRC) senior environment specialist Ian Campbell, however, argued the organisation should not be accused of destroying the river. The projects were all initiated by the governments of MRC members--Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
"The MRC is controlled by the governments. We don't have the power to tell the governments what to do or what not to do," Mr Campbell said. "If environmentalists and the locals want to change things that the MRC does, they should lobby their own governments."
The four downstream countries in April 1995 signed an agreement that established the commission to jointly manage their shared natural resources. The MRC is involved in navigation, flood control, fisheries, agriculture, hydropower and environmental protection. The commission was previously known as the Mekong Committee, which was set up in 1957.
Ms Premrudee said the MRC should try harder to get China involved in the Mekong development dialogue because it had begun a number of large-scale projects that had a serious environmental impact to the region. Although half of the 4,840 km river is inside China and Beijing had plans for several hydropower and commercial navigation projects on the river, it had not joined the MRC.
Ms Premrudee also lashed out at MRC chief executive officer Joern Kristensen for declining to join the international conference, which aimed to provide an opportunity for the organisation to communicate with people in the basin and raise its awareness of issues of concern to local people. She urged Natural Resources and Environment Minister Praphat Panyachartrak to review Thailand's role in the organisation. Earlier, the Department of Energy Development and Promotion, now under the Ministry of Energy, acted as the contact point with the MRC.
Tasks relating to the Mekong river should be transferred to the Natural Resources and Environment Minister, she said. Mr Campbell said the MRC had regular talks with the two upper states of the Mekong River Basin, China and Burma.
"China's Man Wan dam in Yunnan province does worry the MRC," said Mr Campbell. "The dam has certainly had impact on the lower Mekong basin."
However, the dams upstream might also have positive impact downstream. China had said the dams would reduce flooding in rainy season and increase the flow in the dry season. They would also prevent sedimentation, which was severe at the lower Mekong basin, he said.