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(Photo courtesy of Tom Dusenberg/Goldman Environmental Prize) |
Yu Xiaogang, founder of the Kunming-based group Green Watershed, has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of his work on watershed management and the social impacts of dam building in China. (See the Goldman Prize site for a profile of Yu Xiaogang, photos and video.)
Below is an abridged version of an account of the eye-opening field trip Mr. Yu led two years ago when he took a group of Nu valley residents to visit the Manwan dam on the Lancang (Mekong) River, to see how people resettled a decade earlier for that project were faring.
The Nu valley visitors, themselves facing possible resettlement due to dam development on their own river, were shocked at the destitution they found. "Only idiots would want to follow the path the Manwan migrants were forced to take," one said.
"But we also cannot confront the government. If it decides to go ahead with the Nu River dams, it also has the responsibility to protect the interests of ordinary people. We don't like to see a situation where dams make power companies and governments richer, and poor people only poorer."
(The original story ran in South Wind Window (Nanfeng chuang) on June 6, 2004. Translation by Three Gorges Probe.)
Nu River residents get a shock from the Manwan dam
The proposed cascade of 13 dams on the Nu River will require the relocation of 70,000 or even 80,000 local people and affect hundreds of thousands of people living in areas below the dams. Many of those affected are members of ethnic minority groups.
Unfortunately, because of the remote location, lack of access to information and language barriers, many indigenous people have been unaware of the planned hydro dams and have had no idea that they are likely to be resettled in the near future.
"The temporary suspension of the plan to dam the Nu River is a result of the struggle between environmentalists, the government and the hydropower companies," said Yu Xiaogang, founder of Green Watershed, one of the non-government organizations that has played a key role in the campaign against the Nu River dams.
"Everybody knows the latter is trying to push ahead with the schemes anyway. As it stands, NGOs, governments and power companies have all taken part in this debate, but we have heard nothing from the real stakeholders - the indigenous people living in the Nu River valley who will be most affected by these dams.
"So we are going to invite some local people who stand to be affected by the proposed Nu River dams to take a look at the lives of people who have already been resettled on the Lancang [Mekong] River," Yu said.
"We want these prospective migrants to see for themselves how those who are already resettled are faring. In this way, the Nu River residents can get a sense of what the future holds for them, and then make up their own minds. Even if they have no objection to the government's plan, the trip should teach them some valuable lessons that will assist them in protecting their long-term interests."
On May 24 [2004], Yu Xiaogang led a group of 14 residents from the Nu valley to the closest existing dam, the Manwan on the Lancang River. Construction on the dam began in 1986 under the ambitious slogan, "The day the Manwan dam generates electricity is the day local people become rich."
But the Manwan dam failed to bring the promised benefits to the people it displaced. The resettlement funds were too meagre to adequately compensate local people for their property losses. With the filling of the Manwan reservoir, livelihoods suffered and standards of living declined with the sudden loss of natural resources such as farmland, forests, grassland and fisheries.
According to a survey by a Yunnan rural economic investigation team, before the reservoir was filled in 1993, people in the Manwan dam area had enjoyed an annual per capita income that was 11 per cent higher than the average for Yunnan province as a whole.
But now, people who have been displaced by the Manwan dam have only 46 per cent of the average annual income in the province.
"It's heartbreaking even to mention Tianba, which was one of the most beautiful villages in the Manwan area," said villager Zhang Xueping. "We were so much better off there as well."
Located 800 metres upstream of the Manwan dam, Tianba was the first village to be inundated by the rising reservoir. Many people who had lived in Tianba village and been displaced by the Manwan dam now roam around working as "floating labourers" outside the reservoir area. With their low educational levels, they earn too little to meet even their basic needs.
Dozens of displaced people, especially the old and infirm, have been forced to become garbage scavengers, picking through the rubbish discarded by the hydropower plant.
"We can earn 10 or 20 cents [fen] a day selling garbage," said Yang Wencui, who, at the age of 78, was going through a heap of garbage. "If we're lucky, we can make one or two yuan."
One 26-year-old who was carrying her two-year-old child began crying when asked why she was picking through the garbage: "With no land and no job, were struggling to survive. This is the only way."
All of this came as a shock to Cha Fasheng, one of the 14 visitors from the Nu valley: "We never expected to find that your lives had become so hard after resettlement. Why didn't local governments do anything for you?"
To which a Manwan migrant replied: "You know what? Local officials are reluctant to even show up around here because they failed so badly with our resettlement."
Two days of visiting with the Manwan migrants forced the Nu River residents to seriously ponder their own future. And all of them seemed to be quite shocked by the plight of the people displaced by the Manwan dam.
He Yuke, from Xiaoshanba village in the Nu valley, said, "We have to think about all this carefully upon our return. Only idiots would want to follow the path the Manwan migrants were forced to take.
"But we also cannot confront the government. If it decides to go ahead with the Nu River dams, it also has the responsibility to protect the interests of ordinary people. We don't like to see a situation where dams make power companies and governments richer, and poor people only poorer."
The original article appeared on June 6, 2004, in South Wind Window (Nanfeng chuang). Translation by Three Gorges Probe.
Read the full story.
Nu River background
As it wends its way through Yunnan province, the Nu forms part of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park, where three mighty rivers Ð the Yangtze, Lancang (Mekong) and Nu (Salween) Ð flow through steep parallel gorges. It is a region of such rich biodiversity and "outstanding universal value" that UNESCO declared it a world heritage site in 2003.
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Beginning high on the Tibetan plateau, the Nu River passes through southwest China before entering Burma, where it is known as the Thanlwin (in Burmese) or the Salween (in English). The river forms Burma's border with Thailand for 120 kilometres, and eventually empties into the Andaman Sea.
The Nu is one of only two major rivers in China that have not yet been dammed. (The other undisturbed river is the Yaluzangbu in Tibet.) Chinese scientists want the two rivers left alone so that future studies can compare conditions in dammed and undammed rivers, but the free-flowing status of the Nu/Salween is under threat from all three of the countries it passes through.
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Names Gyalmo Ngulchu (Tibetan) Nujiang [Nu River] (Chinese) Thanlwin (Burmese) Salween (English) Length 2,800 kilometres (2,018 km of which are in China) Proposed dams Songta, Bingzhongluo, Maji, Lumadeng, Fugong, Bijiang, Yabiluo, Lushui, Liuku, Shitouzhai, Saige, Yansangshu, Guangpo
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