BEIJING - By boycotting a dam
conference organized by the government, Chinese
environmentalists have protested the lack of
transparency in a river project to build the
world's largest hydroelectric cascade on the Nu
River in southwestern China that flows into
Myanmar and Thailand.
The
environmentalists feared that the conference, held
in late October, was being used to get around
public disclosure of secretive state plans to
harness the Nu River - a pristine waterway. A
cascade of 13 hydropower stations, known as the Nu
River Hydropower Development Project, is being
planned on the Nu, in an area that is rich in
biodiversity and has been designated a World
Heritage site by the United Nations. Grouped as
the China Rivers Network, members of a coalition
of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) were
invited to attend the weekend dam conference -
backed by the National Reform and Development
Commission (NRDC), China's main economic planning
body - to discuss the Nu River project.
"The organizers said they would share with
us parts of the environment impact assessment
[EIA]. But we don't want private access to the
documents. Why not make them accessible to
everyone?" said Zheng Yisheng, researcher with the
Center for Environment and Development, a part of
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
After a public outcry and opposition from
downstream countries, Beijing suspended the plans
last year, and in a victory for China's nascent
green movement, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a full
study of the environmental impact of the proposed
dams in southern Yunnan province.
But in violation of China's much touted
new green laws, the EIA of the project was
completed by the developers in secrecy and sent
for approval to the State Council, China's
cabinet, without any prior public hearings and
disclosure of its content.
Fearing that
the project is tacitly moving up the government
chain, conservationists had circulated an open
letter in August, urging the government to make
the EIA public and allow discussion of the
project. The petition, signed by 61 organizations
and 99 individuals, was sent simultaneously to Wen
Jiabao, the State Environmental Protection Agency
and the NRDC.
Two months later, no reply
had come, but representatives of the China Rivers
Network were invited to attend the weekend dam
conference, possibly because the EIA law passed by
the state in 2003 stipulates that environmental
effects of large projects should be assessed and
included in their feasibility studies. The EIA law
also required public hearings to be held to take
into account the opinions of the people most
affected by construction, but Network activists
suspected that this was being avoided by calling
them in. "We don't want to have another clash
of philosophies, we don't need another argument
about the pros and cons of large dams," said Ma
Jun, an environmental consultant who supports
public disclosure of the Nu River environmental
study. "We need to talk about the details of the
project and these can't be addressed without
publicizing the EIA."
Limited reports on
the dam conference, attended by senior government
officials, power industry executives and Yunnan
Communist Party leaders, reveal a renewed zeal to
push the project through. He Zuoxiu, an elderly
scientist and prominent public figure with
well-known pro-development and pro-scientific
views, told the forum the primary goal of the Nu
River Hydropower Development plan was to alleviate
poverty.
"Developing hydropower is the
only viable way to eradicate entrenched local
poverty, and this is the primary goal of the Nu
River project. Generating power comes second," he
was quoted as saying by the Beijing Times.
Backers of the project insist the dams
would also supply power to a nation that is
increasingly struggling to meet its energy needs.
But provincial leaders in Yunnan have made no
secret of their intention to export power to
neighboring countries. Projected capacity from the
dam cascade is 20,000 megawatts - greater than the
power supplied by the Three Gorges Dam, now the
world's largest hydroelectric project.
By
law, a project on such scale should be approved by
the National People's Congress, the Chinese
parliament. But the central government suffered
embarrassment when the vote on the Three Gorges
Dam was held in 1992: one-third of the
parliament's delegates abstained from voting or
rejected the measure. Perhaps fearful of a similar
campaign, the developers of the Nu River dams are
pressing for a decision directly from the top
levels of the Chinese government. But this has
also increased the stakes of the project in the
eyes of the public.
"The Nu River project
is not only about environmental preservation. It
is also about observing the rule of law in China
and ensuring public participation in the
decision-making process," argues Xue Ye, secretary
of the China Rivers Network. If the project goes
ahead, at least 50,000 people, mainly members of
Yunnan's many ethnic minorities, would have to be
relocated.
These people, Xue says, have
very little say and shouldn't be locked out of the
debate. The plan has already drawn angry protests
from the ethnic communities downstream, in
Thailand and Myanmar. The Nu River is the last
free-flowing international river in the region,
and also Southeast Asia's second longest. It
begins in the Tibetan mountains, crosses Yunnan
province and flows into Myanmar and Thailand,
where it is known as the Salween River.
Chinese civil groups say the propaganda
department of the Communist Party has imposed a
ban on negative media reports about hydropower
development plans. Nevertheless, news has filtered
through that the Yunnan government is seeking
approval from Beijing for four dams for the first
phase of the Nu River project.
The renewed
controversy over the project comes amid pledges by
Beijing to strive for a more environmentally
sensitive model of economic growth. The dam
conference was held just a week after Beijing
unveiled the draft of its new five-year economic
blueprint, which promised to pay heed to the
depletion of natural resources.
Last
February, the government said that 10 regions,
including Beijing, would carry out a pilot project
in green GDP assessment. The proposed green index
for growth would measure the success of provinces
not only in terms of short-term economic figures,
but the longer-term costs of pollution, health and
resource depletion.
Yunnan province,
however, was not among the regions selected to
take part in the pilot project. Local leaders
anticipate tax returns from the completed
full-scale cascade to reach 2.7 billion yuan
(US$333 million) a year. "The Nu River [project]
has become a test of the central government's
resolve to give up [its] growth-at-all-costs
policy and pursue more balanced and
environment-friendly development," said Xue Ye.
