- The controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam in northeastern Cambodia is roughly 30 percent complete.
- The dam will flood 30,000 hectares, mainly of forest that is home to rare species as well as some 5,000 people.
- Scientists estimate the 400-megawatt, $816 million dam will curtail migratory fish populations and the food supplies of some 78,000 people.
The Cambodian government has begun relocating some 5,000 villagers away from the flood site of the Lower Sesan 2 dam. The controversial project in the country’s northeast province of Stung Treng is sited less than a mile below the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers, two of the mighty Mekong’s most significant tributaries.
Having already suffered flooding, reduced fisheries, and other problems resulting from existing upstream dams like Yali Falls in Vietnam, communities within the watershed area have learned through experience how dams impact their livelihoods. This has garnered widespread opposition to the Lower Sesan 2 project in riverbank communities both upstream and downstream of the site. Around 60 communities in the area, mostly inhabited by members of the Phnong, Lao, and Brov ethnic groups, belong to the 3S River Protection Network, an advocacy network opposing the dam whose name refers to the Sesan, Srepok, and Sesong Rivers.
The 400-megawatt dam, costing $816 million, was first approved by Cambodia’s cabinet in November 2012. In February 2013 overseas financing from the Chinese Development Bank was approved, effectively giving the project the go ahead.
The dam reservoir is set to flood over 30,000 hectares, most of it forest, including 1,200 hectares of community farmland and home gardens. The Rivers Coalition in Cambodia, a group of NGOs, reported that forest clearance, especially of valuable tree species, started in April 2013. Since then reports of illegal logging beyond the reservoir area have been frequent. The site provides habitat for rare species, including kouprey (Bos sauveli), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), tiger (Panthera tigris), Eld’s deer (Rucervus eldii), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), and Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus).
The project was one of the first in Cambodia to feature an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). While environmental advocates have hailed this as an important step forward for the country’s infrastructure approval process, they have criticized the Lower Sesan 2 EIA as incomplete. For instance, the EIA identified 106 fish species in the Srepok and Sesan rivers, but this is an underestimate according to experts. A 2011 report documented 240 species in the Srepok and 133 in the Sesan.
A 2012 study by researchers from the U.S. and Cambodia estimated that the dam will reduce fish biomass in the two rivers by over 9 percent, with major knock-on effects on local livelihoods both upstream and downstream from the dam, mainly due to the blockage of fish migrations. Though the dam constructor is attempting to integrate a fish channel, critics say this will be insufficient to prevent the decline of migratory fish species.
Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia Program Director with the advocacy group International Rivers, told mongabay.com that the EIA underestimates how wide ranging the effects of the dam are likely to be, with serious consequences for people whose livelihoods will be upended.
“The EIA only really looks at what would happen right in the immediate dam site area and not upstream and downstream. And what we know is that fish all the way from the Mekong River and fish that migrate up- and downstream will be impacted by this project. And so there are a lot of people upstream and downstream who are not going to receive any kind of compensation,” she said.
A 2009 report from the Rivers Coalition in Cambodia found that more than 38,000 people in 86 villages “would lose access to the vast majority of their fisheries resources” and that 78,000 people would lose some access to fish as a result of the dam. The EIA only goes so far as to admit that the impact on fish stocks will be considerable and that 90 percent of those living upstream, some 1,648 families, rely on fish for their livelihood.
The dam is a joint venture between Cambodia’s Royal Group, a company with no previous dam-building experience, and Chinese dam builder Hydrolancang International Energy Co., Ltd. Hydolancang, which maintains the controlling 51 percent stake in the dam, is owned by Chinese electricity-generating giant Huaneng Corporation.
Despite widespread concerns about the environmental and social effects of the project, construction of the dam is powering ahead apace. “The dam is 30 percent complete. The foundations are laid and the powerhouse is finished,” Trandem said.
Although it will take two years until the dam is completed in 2017, the authorities are keen to relocate people now, so that the reservoir land can be cleared of trees and houses. Last month provincial authorities sent a letter telling communities to move out right away. Relocation of two villages, Trup and Sre Sanouk, is currently underway and the construction company is paying compensation for lost lands and livelihood based on surveys of peoples’ properties.
At a meeting on June 30 in Stung Treng, the provincial capital city, the deputy governor of Stung Treng province, Doung Pov, said that in all, 854 families are due to be relocated from six villages. They have all been offered compensation in exchange for willingly relocating, but Pov stated that 254 families have yet to lodge a compensation claim.
“Many people still refuse to be relocated and they will continue to resist relocation.” Trandem said.
This is because they are unsatisfied with the levels of compensation on the table, as well as with the resettlement site and houses, according to a human-rights advocate working with the communities. The advocate requested anonymity to avoid the risk of his or her group being shut down by a new Cambodian law that requires all foreign groups and individuals working with NGOs to register with the government.
The communities are also concerned that relocation will erode their traditional livelihoods and cultural identity, the advocate said.
Displaced people have been offered three options: a 50- by 20-meter plot of land with a concrete or wooden house and an additional 5 hectares of farmland in one of several designated resettlement areas spread along a national highway close to the dam site; land with a house plus $6,000 in a resettlement area; or between $10,000 and $12,000 in cash. Additional incentives include rice and fuel supplies for the initial period of resettlement.
Families can also file claims for other lost forms of food production, such as fruit trees. But still people feel hard done by the compensation rates on offer. For instance, for the loss of one mango tree the company provides $20 to $30, the anonymous advocate said, but the villagers can earn more than that from the sale of fruit over the many years that the tree would bear fruit.
The advocate, who recently visited the resettlement site, said that communities also have concerns about the productive quality of the soil. “The quality of the land is really poor. It cannot grow. Maybe they can grow some but the quality is really low. So that’s why no one was living there already,” the advocate said.
The land area is also smaller than communities say is necessary to raise sufficient food for survival. “They have a lot of animals and livestock but in the new area there is no space for cows or buffalo to graze. They feel the houses are really small, close together with no space for gardens,” the advocate said.
One of the biggest complaints concerns the wooden or concrete houses, which the displaced people consider inferior to their old homes in size as well as quality, and come with no written guarantee. The Phnom Penh Post reported on July 27 that the government had responded to this worry. Ith Praing, a secretary of state at the ministry of Mines and Energy, said he would guarantee the new homes, stating “I can promise to guarantee the homes for one year in case they collapse, but this promise is without documents… If there’s a problem, they can complain to the ministry. I promise that no cheating will take place.”
A report published in February found that the compensation Hydrolancang paid to people in China displaced by the company’s Nuozhadu dam was much higher than the amount earmarked for Lower Sesan 2 compensation. “The compensation package currently offered to affected people by Lower Sesan is only 23% of Nuozhadu’s resettlement budget on a person to person basis,” the report states.
The report attributes this discrepancy to the absence of government regulations requiring compensation in Cambodia. Since China adopted resettlement regulations in 2006, dam-affected people have been in a better position to claim full losses, such as grazing land, which in Cambodia is at the discretion of the company.
The Lower Sesan 2 dam is one of 18 already built or being planned by the Cambodian government to supply a demand for electricity that is forecast to increase by 17.9 percent annually until 2020. The dam is slated to produce 400 megawatts of electricity at maximum capacity, but the dam constructors accept that production will fall to 100 megawatts in the dry season, drawing criticism that the project’s benefits are not worth the disruption to lives and livelihoods.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) is the regional body moderating decision-making around all dams connected to the Mekong River watershed. Its remit covers six countries, four of which have raised concerns about the Lower Sesan 2, as have big donor countries and institutions. On June 24 the commission released a statement that dam projects on tributaries of the Mekong that impact neighboring countries should be included in the MRCs Prior Consultation process, which gives affected countries and local communities a say in whether a project goes ahead. This is currently obligatory only for dams on the Mekong itself, and the Cambodian government has no obligation to follow the consultation process for the Lower Sesan 2.
Vietnam is especially concerned because of predictions that the dam will trap large quantities of sediment. This will reduce the amount finding its way downstream to add nutrients to Vietnam’s agriculturally rich Mekong delta region, upon which millions of people depend for their livelihoods.
“We continue to call for the cancellation of this dam. At least to halt all construction and to immediately carry out a new transboundary EIA in order to fully assess the risks of this project,” said Trandem.
Citations
- Power Engineering Consulting Joint Stock Company 1 Vietnam, Key Consultants Cambodia (2008). Environmental Impact Assessment for Feasibility Study of Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Project, Stung Treng Province, Cambodia. Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
- Baran E., Saray S., Teoh, S.J., Tran T.C. (2011). Fish and fisheries in the Sesan River Basin ‐ Catchment baseline, fisheries section. Project report. Mekong Challenge Program project MK3 “Optimizing the management of a cascade of reservoirs at the catchment level”. WorldFish Center, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
- Baird, I.G. (2009). Best Practices in Compensation and Resettlement for Large Dams: The Case of the Planned Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Project in Northeastern Cambodia. Rivers Coalition in Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
- Ren, I.Y. (2015). Same Company, Two Dams, One River: Using Hydrolancang’s China Domestic Practice to Mainstream Biodiversity, Fisheries and Livelihood Protection in the Lower Sesan 2 Dam Project. Ren, I.Y., Self-published.
- Ziva, G., Baran, E., Nam, S., Rodríguez-Iturbe, I., Levin, S.A. (2012). Trading-off fish biodiversity, food security, and hydropower in the Mekong River Basin. 109(15):5609–5614.