Thread: The Mekong Saga: Indefinite Changes...??

A changing Mekong, changing lives in Ubon Ratchathani

Submitted by editor4 on Fri, 12/05/2017 - 15:02


Kornkritch Somjittranukit
Dams constructed by Chinese government along the Mekong river are forcing villagers in Ubon Ratchathani into lives of uncertainty, even as they reap no benefits from the dams themselves.


On 19 April 2017, seven exploration ships from China arrived in Chiang Khong District, Chiang Rai Province. The ships were assigned to navigate Thailand’s Mekong river as part of a plan to bomb outcrops along the riverbank to clear the way for commercial ships.

The bombing is the first stage of a plan to develop a shipping route from China’s Yunnan Province to Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. On 27 December 2016, the Thai cabinet gave the green light to the Development Plan for International Navigation on the Lancang-Mekong River (2015–2025), approving boats from China to survey the river.

This is not the first time that governments have tried to appropriate the Mekong without the participation of local people, who are often heavily affected by such megaprojects. Security officers have also intimidated those who stand against them.

On 26 April, soldiers from the 37 Military Circle of Chiang Rai summoned Niwat Roikaew to ‘a talk’ at a coffee shop. Niwat is the the leader of a local environmental conservation group called ‘Khon Rak Chiang Kong’ that actively stands against the Chinese navigation. Though authorities did not press charge that day, they asked him to stop his campaign but Niwat insisted on continuing his opposition.

Before being summoned, Niwat told the media that the bombing of outcrops would significantly damage the Mekong River’s ecology. Outcrops provide natural shelter for animals and plants, while acting as natural dams that help slow the river stream and prevent the destruction of local agricultural areas.

“[The Mekong] will become a mere canal. Without outcrops, she is no longer a river but a waterway. There will be no place for animals to live,” said Niwat as quoted by The Isaan Record.

Conflict between local people and governments on the Mekong river emerged in 1996 when China built the first dam on the Mekong river. Nowadays, six dams have been built in China, and another in Laos. Those dams have dramatically affected the tide of the Mekong, contributing to a decline in fish numbers, size and diversity. Unpredictable tides also prevent people from planting along the riverbank, once a main source of income and food.

Ubon Ratchathani provides a startling example of how the dams have affected local livelihoods. Ubon is the last province along the Mekong in Thailand before the river enters Lao. The river has to pass the seven dams in China and Laos before it arriving in Ubon. The province also profits from tourist spots along the Mekong’s bank such as Sam Phan Bok (Three Thousand Holes), Hat Salueng (Salueng Beach) and the two-tone rivers.

The voices of Ubon people echo the some 3.1 million Thais who live along the Mekong.

Niphaphon Ura, a villager whose house is located next to the Mekong, has witnessed the change and fluctuation of the river since the very first dam was constructed. In the past, the water level will drop between December and April, allowing villagers to grow crops like rice, corns and beans in the sand bars that were revealed.

But ever since the dams were constructed, the river’s tide has become unnatural and unpredictable. Sometimes the water will recede for two days, other times for almost two months. The villagers can no longer plan their farming.

Niphaphon has also observed that the amount and size of fish caught in the Mekong has significantly decreased. She used to catch redtail catfish weighing between one to three kilos, sometimes up to five kilos. Nowadays, fish weigh less than a kilo

Niphaphon explained that fish usually lay eggs during the drought season, where the river is placid. But China has begun releasing water during the same period, preventing the fish from reproducing. She is concerned that if China bomb more outcrops, the tide will be stronger and harm fish even further.

Niphaphon argues it is harder to protect the community and natural resources under the political climate of Thailand’s military regime.

“In the past, we could talk and speak out. We once brought a deputy minister to visit our village because they were elected so had to listen to us. Since the coup, we have had to travel to Bangkok. [In 2015] over a hundred villagers went to Bangkok together with the People's Movement For Justice Society but [the junta] allowed only ten of us to go inside the meeting room. The government said it is aware of our problems and will fix them. But they’ve done nothing,” Niphaphon stated.

The economic hardship caused by the dams is now forcing villagers to leave their hometowns to work in Bangkok. Praiwan Kaewsai, a villager age 46, said that two out of her four children had to start working when they finished grade nine. Her two elder sons went to work in Bangkok when they turned 20. Some months they send back 4,000 baht in remittances, some months they send nothing.

Praiwan’s sons also sent two children back home and asked her to take care of them. She added that when her third son, currently a grade 7 student, may also go to Bangkok to join his brothers when he finishes grade 9.

Apart from remittances, Praiwan’s husband earns 5,000 baht per month from his work as the village head’s assistant. Praiwan also makes kratip, a bamboo container for keeping cooked sticky rice, and earns about two or three thousand baht per month. But the income is spent completely on their children and basic utilities.

Praiwan frets that villagers’ income from fishing has disappeared since the dams were constructed. In the past, villagers could reap over ten kilos of fish and earn seven to eight hundred baht each time they sailed. Presently, they only get a couple of kilos per round and sometimes have to set sail four or five times to reel in just one fish. Most villagers decided to stop fishing and have to buy fish from the market instead.

“Don’t ask about my income. I have no income because I have no job. My only job now is taking care of my children. If my children don’t send back money, I can’t eat,” said Praiwan.

The tourist industry is also in trouble. Most tourist attractions in Ubon Ratchathani also rely on the Mekong’s tide.

Hat Salueng, or Salueng Beach, is a sandbar that appears between December and May during the drought season. Tourists who want to visit Sam Phan Bok, also known as the Grand Canyon of Siam, have to take a boat from Salueng Beach. The beach is the foundation of many locals’ main sources of income.

Prasat Udomlap, a sailor aged 60, observes that the dams now cause the beach to appear for only a few weeks in late December. His income has dropped from 20 or 30 thousand baht per month to less than ten thousand.

In the past, the beach housed 19 service boats for tourists. Each boat sailed two or three rounds a day and the sailor earn 1,000 baht per round. Now there are only 17 boats that sail only one round a day.

Prasat fears that if there is more bombing of the Mekong outcrops, the water level will be even higher — making his income will be even lower.

“It’s like China is bullying Thailand’s tourism industry. Now there’s flooding during the drought season, which is supposed to be high season. In the past, there were so many tourists and vendors, just like Pattaya. There was a beach volleyball and football competition. Now they’re all gone. When tourists come here and find that there’s no beach, they return home right away,” Prasat explained.

Prasat added that Hat Hong, called the ‘Desert of Thailand’ for its beautiful dunes, has also been affected by the dams on the Mekong. In the past, this area was flooded for over three months during the rainy season. The lengthy flood period prevented plants from taking root in the area, creating the sand dunes that appeared during the drought season.

After the dams were build, the flood period was shortened to just a month, not long enough to limit plant growth. Hat Hong this year was covered in tall grass, tarnishing its image as the “Desert of Siam”.


~ https://prachatai.com/english/node/7138

Progress! Ain't it grand?

Originally Posted by Norton

Progress! Ain't it grand?

Indeed.....
A particular variety of forced progress.

China Plans to Blow Up River Islands

Endangered species, including one of the largest freshwater fishes in the world, face extinction in the process.

By The Conversation, Contributor
May 18, 2017, at 2:04 p.m.
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China Plans to Blow Up River Islands
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Chinese Cargo Ships On The Mekong River. From Chiang Saen Thailand. To Jinghong China. (Photo by: Luciano Lepre/AGF/UIG via Getty Images)
Chinese cargo ships travel on the Mekong River from Chiang Saen, Thailand, to Jinghong, China (Luciano Lepre/AGF/UIG/Getty Images)
By Alan Marshall

The "pla beuk" is a beautiful behemoth; a gigantic toothless catfish with skin smooth and silky to the touch.

It's the largest freshwater fish in the world and, once upon a time, these fish swam the great lengths of the mighty Mekong River from southern China, through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, all the way to the river's delta in Vietnam.

Now, there are maybe only a few hundred adult specimens still living, hidden in isolated deep pools in a few relatively undisturbed places along the river.

If you wish to catch a glimpse of one, the best bet is to cast your eyes about the murals of the Mekong's resorts, restaurants and riverside temples, where they're often painted in a serene satiny blue.

In folklore, pla beuk was once revered throughout the Mekong basin and those who sought to capture one for eating in days gone by would often perform special rituals and offerings before heading out to fish for it.

The traditional way to claim the life of a pla beuk was to go out in a wooden boat and throw a homemade spear or fibrous net laden with rocks at each corner. But now China wants to kill them another away – with bombs.

[RELATED: India is Uneasy Over Chinese Development Project]

"Who would bomb a catfish?" I expect you're asking.

China's expanding trade routes

On May 14, the Chinese Government launched its Silk Road Project to develop trade routes across the lands of Central Asia to Europe as well as sea routes across Asian seas.

But China's vision of Asian trade routes is not without its own bombs. The company charged with developing a trade route along the Mekong River (the state-owned Chinese Communications Construction Company) is set to dynamite river islands on a 900-kilometer section of the river that passes from the Chinese province of Yunnan through to the river port of Luang Prabang in Laos.


On the other side of the Indochinese peninsula, in the South China Sea, China is building islands, but in the Mekong it wants to demolish islands in order to make the river more navigable. Proponents talk about the process as a "river improvement project;" a "gentling-out" of the Mekong to make it smooth and easy to handle – like the pla beuk, it might be said.

This section of the river has been navigable for decades for cargo boats carrying about 60 tonnes or more. These can safely pass between the Mekong's islands if an experienced navigator is on board.

But China is brandishing about the idea that larger boats mean more trade and more prosperity. And it plans to open up the Yunnan-to-Luang Prabang stretch of the Mekong to 500-tonne cargo barges.

This means hundreds of river islands in China, Burma, Thailand and Laos have to be blasted away.

[RELATED: Xi Jingping Defends Globalization at Davos]

Route to environmental decay

While not officially part of the new Silk Road, the Mekong route is still part of China's national goal of trade route expansion. But outside of that country, environmental groups such as Save the Mekong, International Rivers, the Burma Rivers Network are questioning the economic case for the Mekong to serve as an expanded trade route.

They're suggesting that a smoothed out Mekong would only increase trade between China and the Mekong nations by an insignificant amount. Many also suggest that the plan is mainly about China getting access to the fast-growing Southeast Asian market for Yunnan's agricultural products.

Right now, it takes two weeks for Yunnan producers to get their goods to a Chinese seaport and another week to get them to big city markets in Indochina. The Mekong trade route is touted as being able to do all this within a few days.


Despite the bigger boats and the faster travel times, the economic impetus may be less important to China than political drivers. China will be lending money and providing credit lines – to the tune of US$10 billion – to the various Mekong nations. And it can leverage this debt to push forward with its own interests in the region.

If the river islands do get blasted away, a whole range of environmental consequences may cascade for hundreds of kilometers. The river may travel faster in parts, eroding riverside farms and conservation zones. It may also end up traveling slower in other parts; lowering water levels and changing the quantity and quality of sediment that will flow downstream.

[RELATED: Could China Take the Lead Against Climate Change?]

The impact of this changing water flow on food and water security has not yet been calculated — if it ever could be — but the risks are enormous.

The Mekong, with its nutrient-rich sediment, is crucial for growing rice. It's also home to hundreds of species of edible fish. For tens of millions of people in the Mekong basin, including millions of fisherfolk who live at near-subsistence level, fish and rice constitute their daily diet.

It may be shortsighted to gamble with this invaluable resource just to effect a slight increase in international trade figures. And this kind of threat to their livelihood recently pushed Mekong fishing communities to take to their riverboats in protest.

What's more, business people in Burma, Laos and Thailand might look forward to increased trade between their nations but they may find themselves squeezed out of their local economy if they're undercut by cheap goods flowing down the river from China.


Rock or an island?

Then, there's the catfish. Those who seek to "smooth-out" the Mekong generally refer to the river islands as rocks. But these "rocks" are far from lifeless.

Many are vegetated, some with trees, and their presence in the river creates a range of pools, shoals, bars, shallows, and waterfalls, perfect for breeding countless varieties of fish, including pla beuk.


Click here to join. (ISTOCKPHOTO)

When pla beuk are young – and "ugly-cute" with prominent their whiskers – they hang around these sorts of places as they shelter from predators, feed on algae, and slowly grow. Destruction of these river islands and rocky outcrops would probably lead to the demise of juvenile fish.

At the moment, the Mekong River is known to be the most biodiverse river in the world — after the Amazon. But if the river islands are bombed away and if the riverscape is engineered into something more like a large artificial canal, then endangered species, including pla beuk, face extinction.

Alas, even if the river islands are left in peace, the fish of the Mekong face another attack from China: dams. Chinese dams have all but stopped fish migration in the upper reaches of the Mekong yet many more dams are being built every year.

If you are a fish, having your island birthplace blasted away with dynamite might seem pretty rough. But coming across a new dam is like a nuclear bomb going off.

This article was written by Alan Marshall, lecturer in environmental social sciences and faculty of social sciences and humanities at Mahidol University, for The Conversation on May 18, 2017. It is republished with permission.
The Conversation

Tags: China, Thailand, trade, economy, global economy


The Conversation CONTRIBUTOR
The Conversation is a nonprofit news organization bringing knowledge from academia to the wider public. Articles are written by scholars who are experts on issues of public interest, assisted by editors who help unlock the knowledge. The Conversation was founded in 2011 and has newsrooms in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and France.
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