In the quest for renewable hydropower, indiscriminate dam building in the basin of the Mekong is changing the landscape and negatively impacting local communities and ecosystems.

Synopsis: Every first and third Sunday of the month, The Straits Times analyses the beat of the changing environment, from biodiversity conservation to climate change.

Unilateral and indiscriminate dam building has been taking place in the quest for hydropower and control over water in the basin of the Mekong river - the lifeblood of mainland Southeast Asia.  

But local communities most impacted by the changing face of the river system struggle to be heard amid elite-driven, urban-based decision-making and an engineering mindset, critics say. 

Only one in ten of over 600 dams have been notified to the Mekong River Commission, following the 1995 Mekong Agreement among Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The Agreement was supposed to focus on sustainable development and management and tries to balance needs and rights. 

Two other countries where the Mekong river flows - China and Myanmar - are not bound to notify the Commission as they are only dialogue partners. 

On this episode of Green Pulse, host Nirmal Ghosh speaks to Senior Fellow and co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor at the Stimson Center Brian Eyler and Thailand-based Campaigns Director for Thailand and Myanmar of International Rivers Pianporn (Pai) Deetes. 

Highlights of conversation (click/tap above):

02:31 Sounding the alarm with more dams coming up 

03:55  Dams in China’s part of the Mekong river are doing the most damage 

06:43 How Laos attracted huge amounts of foreign investment with its “Battery of Southeast Asia” programme 

12:04 In Thailand, why build more dams when there has been an oversupply of electricity

15:54 Significant environmental impacts on Vietnam and Cambodia from the Funan Techo canal, whose development would also violate the Mekong agreement 

19:20 No accountability for damaging consequences 

Produced by: Nirmal Ghosh (nirmal@sph.com.sg) and Fa'izah Sani

Edited by: Fa’izah Sani

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