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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/salween-river/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>Salween River environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/salween-river/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Asia’s longest free-flowing river contaminated by arsenic linked to Myanmar mines</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/asias-longest-free-flowing-river-contaminated-by-arsenic-linked-to-myanmar-mines/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/asias-longest-free-flowing-river-contaminated-by-arsenic-linked-to-myanmar-mines/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Apr 2026 02:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/14102130/IMG_0208-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317477</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Myanmar, Salween River, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Chemicals, Critical Minerals, Drinking Water, Ecosystems, Energy Transition, extractives, Fisheries, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Global Environmental Crisis, Gold Mining, Governance, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, International Trade, Mining, Pollution, Public Health, Renewable Energy, Resource Conflict, Rivers, Traditional People, Tropics, Water, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MAE HONG SON, Thailand — Saw Si Paw Rak Salween guns the wooden fishing boat’s engine and steers along the river that inspired his family name. He is ethnic Karen — his parents migrated from Myanmar’s side of the Salween River to the Thai side. When he acquired Thai citizenship, Saw Si Paw had to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MAE HONG SON, Thailand — Saw Si Paw Rak Salween guns the wooden fishing boat’s engine and steers along the river that inspired his family name. He is ethnic Karen — his parents migrated from Myanmar’s side of the Salween River to the Thai side. When he acquired Thai citizenship, Saw Si Paw had to select his own family name, a convention not followed in much of Myanmar. He settled on Rak Salween, which translates to “Love the Salween River.” Saw Si Paw’s love for the wild, free-flowing waterway extends beyond his chosen name. Together with his father, he guides the boat to his family’s 8-meter (26-foot) fishing nets left overnight on the Myanmar side of the river. Fishing is all he’s ever known, having learned the trade from his father and plied it on the Salween his entire life. So, it was especially jarring for him to hear about toxic chemicals recently found in the Salween. Independent testing of the Salween River began in September 2025, when researchers from Thailand’s Institute of Health Sciences Research at Chiang Mai University found alarming levels of contamination detected in the nearby Kok, Sai and Ruak rivers in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, much of which has been linked to unregulated mining in Myanmar. In particular, rare earth mines exporting crucial minerals — needed for artificial intelligence, mobile phones, laptops, electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies, among other things — have been blamed. But the mining of gold and various critical&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/asias-longest-free-flowing-river-contaminated-by-arsenic-linked-to-myanmar-mines/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/asias-longest-free-flowing-river-contaminated-by-arsenic-linked-to-myanmar-mines/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317477</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Specter of dams and diversion looms over Southeast Asia’s Salween River</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/specter-of-dams-and-diversion-looms-over-southeast-asias-salween-river/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/specter-of-dams-and-diversion-looms-over-southeast-asias-salween-river/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jun 2025 03:48:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/19023446/Salween-banner-image-V1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=301033</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Mekong Basin, Myanmar, Salween River, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Agriculture, Community-based Conservation, Conflict, Crops, Dams, Drinking Water, Ecosystems, Environment, Fishing, Freshwater, Governance, Hydroelectric Power, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Renewable Energy, Resource Conflict, Rivers, Traditional People, Tropics, Water, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MAE HONG SON, Thailand — The shores of Myanmar became visible from Sob Moei village in northeastern Thailand as the morning mist rises over the Salween River, the flowing water the only border between Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province and Myanmar’s Kayin state. Flowing nearly 3,300 kilometers (about 2,000 miles) from Tibet, south through China [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MAE HONG SON, Thailand — The shores of Myanmar became visible from Sob Moei village in northeastern Thailand as the morning mist rises over the Salween River, the flowing water the only border between Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province and Myanmar’s Kayin state. Flowing nearly 3,300 kilometers (about 2,000 miles) from Tibet, south through China and Myanmar, before joining the Andaman Sea, the Salween River is Asia’s longest free-flowing river. Home to more than 200 species of fish, a quarter of which are estimated to be found nowhere else in the world, and irrigating vast tracts of farmland, the Salween is a vital resource that provides food security, livelihoods, as well as drinking and bathing water to largely Indigenous communities across three countries. Devoid of the hydropower dams that have choked the Mekong River and its tributaries, the Salween unites farmers and fishers in Thailand and Myanmar more than it divides them. But planned dams on the Myanmar stretch of the river mean its free-flowing nature is far from guaranteed. “We get our food from the river, so if the Salween River is dammed or developed, it will definitely impact our families,” said Naw K&#8217;nyaw Paw, secretary-general of the Karen Women’s Organization, speaking at a protest against dams at Sob Moei on March 14. Hundreds of Karen protesters light candles to bless the Salween River and protect it from hydropower dam construction. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay. At least 20 dams have been proposed or planned along the Salween,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/specter-of-dams-and-diversion-looms-over-southeast-asias-salween-river/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/specter-of-dams-and-diversion-looms-over-southeast-asias-salween-river/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-301033</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Communities launch new Thawthi Taw-Oo Indigenous Park amid Myanmar civil war</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/communities-launch-new-thawthi-taw-oo-indigenous-park-amid-myanmar-civil-war/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/communities-launch-new-thawthi-taw-oo-indigenous-park-amid-myanmar-civil-war/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Dec 2024 18:44:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/17175248/40-TTIP-landscape-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=291841</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous-led conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Myanmar, Salween River, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Military, Rainforests, Traditional People, and War]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Amid Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, Karen and other ethnic minority communities have officially launched the Thawthi Taw-Oo Indigenous Park, a new community-led conservation area in the northern Kayin state. The launch lasted December 10-12, 2024. Organizers of the park say this new conservation area is a move to strengthen their self-determination and agency over lands [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Amid Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, Karen and other ethnic minority communities have officially launched the Thawthi Taw-Oo Indigenous Park, a new community-led conservation area in the northern Kayin state. The launch lasted December 10-12, 2024. Organizers of the park say this new conservation area is a move to strengthen their self-determination and agency over lands and resources. “Launching the park was an announcement of our rights over the lands and natural resources that we have cared for for generations with our customary laws, governance and administration,” said Saw Thaw Tu Htoo, one of the founders of the park’s committee and the secretary of Taw-Oo district. Covering an area of 575,450 hectares (1,421,967 acres) and 318 villages, the park includes 28 kaws (ancestral customary lands), four community forests, seven watersheds, six reserved forests and one wildlife sanctuary. It is just north of the Salween Peace Park, an award-winning Karen-led protected area of similar size, and is situated in one of the most biodiverse areas of the Asia-Pacific. The founders of the park’s committee, Saw Ma Bu Htoo and Saw Thaw Tu Htoo, told Mongabay that the conservation area was envisioned back in 2017. The park was created in a collaboration between communities, the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) civil society organization and the forestry and agriculture departments of the Karen National Union (KNU), a political organization vying for Karen independence. Representatives of these groups sit on the park’s management committee. Many ethnic groups, including Karen subgroups, the Pa’O and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/communities-launch-new-thawthi-taw-oo-indigenous-park-amid-myanmar-civil-war/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-291841</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Past and future tropical dams devastating to fish the world over: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/past-and-future-tropical-dams-devastating-to-fish-the-world-over-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/past-and-future-tropical-dams-devastating-to-fish-the-world-over-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Feb 2020 11:35:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Asher Elbein]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/02/21104419/BANNER-dams1-768x512-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=227302</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Brazil, Congo Basin, Global, Indonesia, Latin America, Mekong Basin, Salween River, South America, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Controversial, Dams, Energy, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Flooding, Freshwater Fish, Green, Hydroelectric Power, Infrastructure, Land Use Change, Migration, Nutrient Pollution, Research, Rivers, Sedimentation, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A survey of 40,000 existing and 3,700 planned dams finds that the structures could fragment fish habitat in the Amazon, Niger, Congo, Salween and Mekong river systems by 25% or more.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[China&#8217;s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Image by Le Grand Portage, copyright CC BY 2.0. Hydropower dams are rising on rivers throughout the tropics, their energy promoted as vital to development, or hyped under the banner of renewable energy. But old dams have been having, and new dams are likely to have, disastrous impacts on river fish, according to a new global assessment by researchers at Radboud University, the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, and the Stanford Natural Capital Project. The study, recently published in the PNAS journal, mapped the existing and projected impacts of current and future tropical river dams on thousands of fish species, and showed that dam construction will increase habitat fragmentation along rivers like the Amazon, Niger, Congo, Salween and Mekong by a quarter or more. “Understanding the impact of fish habitat fragmentation due to dams is key to start quantifying these [ecological] tradeoffs,” says Valerio Barbarossa, a researcher at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and lead author on the paper. While researchers have long suspected that global development of dams was becoming a severe threat to river habitat, there were no global studies attempting to quantify those effects. Dams are currently most prevalent — and habitat fragmentation correspondingly highest — in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, India and China. But with hydropower development shifting rapidly to the tropics in recent years, ecologists have been sounding the alarm. Barbossa’s interest in the topic led him to begin synthesizing available knowledge on the subject&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/past-and-future-tropical-dams-devastating-to-fish-the-world-over-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/past-and-future-tropical-dams-devastating-to-fish-the-world-over-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-227302</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Counterintuitive: Global hydropower boom will add to climate change</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/02/counterintuitive-global-hydropower-boom-will-add-to-climate-change/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/02/counterintuitive-global-hydropower-boom-will-add-to-climate-change/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Feb 2017 11:43:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Salisbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/02/14114202/FEATURED-dams-556x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=193221</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Mekong dams]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, China, Global, Mekong Basin, and Salween River]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Climate Change, Controversial, Culture, Dams, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Ethnocide, Flooding, Forests, Global Warming, Hydroelectric Power, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Mitigation, Natural Resources, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Rivers, Saving Rainforests, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that also aims to supply drinking water to exploding human populations and to facilitate navigation on the planet’s rivers; 3,700 new dams — 847 of them [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Thousand Island Lake in China, the result of a dam built in the 1950s on the Xin’an River. A global study has found that greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs are substantial, with methane contributing to 90 percent of a reservoir’s global warming potential during the first 20 years of its life. Photo by Bryan Ong on Flickr, under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that also aims to supply drinking water to exploding human populations and to facilitate navigation on the planet’s rivers; 3,700 new dams — 847 of them larger than 100 MW — are slated for construction. But one strong argument in favor of hydropower is now looking far weaker. Scientists have compiled the most comprehensive assessment yet of the global impact that dam reservoirs have on the world’s atmosphere and greenhouse emissions. And it isn’t good news. Globally, the researchers estimate that reservoirs — long considered “zero emitters” by the United Nations climate program — contribute 1.3 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions on this scale are comparable to those from rice paddy cultivation or biomass burning, the study authors write. But despite their magnitude, these reservoir emissions are not currently counted within United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) assessments. In fact, countries are currently eligible under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/02/counterintuitive-global-hydropower-boom-will-add-to-climate-change/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-193221</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dam proposals for Salween River threaten tentative ceasefire between Myanmar government and minority groups</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/dam-proposals-for-salween-river-threaten-tentative-ceasefire-between-myanmar-government-and-minority-groups/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/dam-proposals-for-salween-river-threaten-tentative-ceasefire-between-myanmar-government-and-minority-groups/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2015 17:02:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/04/dam-proposals-for-salween-river-threaten-tentative-ceasefire-between-myanmar-government-and-minority-groups/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Myanmar, Salween River, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Dams, Environment, Green, and Hydroelectric Power]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Villagers protest the proposed construction of dams on the Salween River in Myanmar, on International Day of Action for Rivers and Against Dams, March 14, 2015. At least five dams being planned on the Salween have been a flashpoint in altercations between Myanmar government forces and ethnic-minority rebel groups. Credit: Karen Environmental and Social Action [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Villagers protest the proposed construction of dams on the Salween River in Myanmar, on International Day of Action for Rivers and Against Dams, March 14, 2015. At least five dams being planned on the Salween have been a flashpoint in altercations between Myanmar government forces and ethnic-minority rebel groups. Credit: Karen Environmental and Social Action Network. Late last year, an ongoing conflict in southeast Myanmar (Burma) between members of the Karen ethnic minority group and the Myanmar government intensified over the government&#8217;s plans to build a new hydropower dam on the Salween River. The dam is one of at least five dams that the Myanmar government plans to build along the Salween. The Irrawaddy magazine reported at the time that, according to local activists, the escalation in violence was due to an attempt by government forces to remove armed Karen militia groups from the site chosen for the Hatgyi dam. Myanmar has been in a near-constant state of civil war since it gained independence from the UK in 1948. But the violence has lessened in recent years as the country has taken tentative steps toward resolving these long-running disputes, culminating in a draft nationwide ceasefire agreement signed on March 31 by President U Thein Sein and representatives of 16 ethnic groups. A few days earlier, a group of activists who live on the Salween River and oppose the government&#8217;s dam plans hosted a two-day conference called &#8220;Save the Salween&#8221; in Hpa-an, the capital of the state of Karen. Paul Sein&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/dam-proposals-for-salween-river-threaten-tentative-ceasefire-between-myanmar-government-and-minority-groups/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-23817</doi>				</item>
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