Dams and Development Threaten the Mekong

Quarter 2

Article 2

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/asia/18mekong.html?_r=1

NY times

Miller Chapter

The area covered is global.

The Mekong river courses 3,032 miles through parts of China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It empties into the South China Sea and is rapidly being transformed by economic development, the region’s thirst for electricity and the desire to use the river as a cargo thoroughfare. The Mekong has been spared the pollution that blackens many of Asia’s rivers, but it is no longer the backwater of centuries past.China has built three hydroelectric dams on the Mekong and is halfway through a fourth at Xiaowan, in Yunnan Province, which when completed will be the world’s tallest dam. Environmentalists worry that the rush to develop the Mekong, particularly the dams, is not only changing the panorama of the river but could also destroy the livelihoods of people who have depended on it for centuries. The most controversial aspects of the dams are their effects on migrating fish and on the rice-growing Mekong Delta in Vietnam, where half of that country’s food is grown. The dams will block sediment and fish from passing through, 87 percent which are migratory and depend on migrating up the river to spawn. Also, the dams are causing international conflict. Civic groups in Thailand say they are frustrated that China does not seem to care how its dams affect the lives of people downstream.

I think that China needs to slow down its development. China is building up fast and not regarding how its construction will take a toll on the environment and the people. These dams produce energy but they are also creating problems with the ecosystem and neighboring countries. China should not build all of the dams because they are not caring about how it affects the lives of the people downstream and the fish and other species that depend on the river for survival.

Vocabulary-

hydroelectric power- the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.

dam- a barrier to obstruct the flow of water