Brazil’s “Transversal Environmental Agenda,” released on 25 January 2024, contains many good things for the government to be doing, but it misses the opportunity to implant what a transversal agenda…
As Sarawak’s top officials plan three new hydropower dams, seemingly eager to export more electricity, some Indigenous residents of the Malaysian Bornean state are urging officials to slow down development…
KATHMANDU — The Nepali government has approved a controversial proposal allowing the construction of large-scale hydropower plants inside the country’s protected areas, in a move conservationists have slammed as a…
KATHMANDU — As Nepal, one of the least industrialized countries in the world, invests in hydropower and roads to lift its people’s living standards, balancing public aspirations with conservation has…
PHNOM PENH — Two new hydropower dams approved by Cambodian authorities on Nov. 21 look set to bring further fragmentation to the dense rainforests of the Cardamom Mountains. If built…
“They are going to flood the Tapayuna people’s history,” says Yaku Suya, a 43-year-old Indigenous leader from the village of Tyrykho, in Xingu Indigenous Park in the heart of the…
KATHMANDU – Nepali conservationists have expressed outrage over the Ministry of Forest and Environment’s recent proposal to scrap existing guidelines through the backdoor to make it easier for developers to…
The modification of the rivers in Brazil has been driven by energy development, but investment in dams has the potential of creating an economically attractive option for shipping Brazil’s farm…
The past two decades saw a massive increase in hydropower across the Pan Amazon. The Brazilian government has scaled back investment in mega-scale hydropower projects but continues to pursue development…
Peru has enjoyed historic levels of economic growth for more than two decades, mostly due to the expansion of the minerals sector, which is a large consumer of electrical energy.…
Bolivia’s hydropower is based on medium-scale facilities located in a geographical region optimally suited for dam and tunnel (D&T) systems. The oldest of these is in the Zongo Valley, which…
In 2010, Electronorte initiated the construction of a high-tension (500 kW) transmission line to connect the power plants at Tucuruí and Belo Monte; this line was extended north to the…
The Rio Madeira was the next Amazonian tributary to attract the attention of Brazil’s hydropower developers. The river is free of rapids as it flows along the western edge of…
The oldest hydropower facility in the Brazilian Amazon is the Tucuruí D&R complex (8.4 GW) on the lower Tocantins River, about 200 kilometers south of its confluence with the Amazon…
Flitting through the forest foliage, darting between branches and flawlessly negotiating their way around gargantuan tree trunks, bats have evolved exquisite adaptations to their forest homes. Although inaudible to human…
JAKARTA — When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With…
BATANG TORU, Indonesia — With fewer than 800 individuals remaining in the wild today, the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan isn’t just the most threatened great ape species in the world…
KALUMPANG, Indonesia — In January, as representatives of a hydropower company explained their plan to dam the river near his home, Kasman wondered if he was staring at annihilation. Kasman…
JAKARTA — A second tunnel collapse this year at a controversial dam construction site in Indonesia has killed another Chinese worker, bringing the toll from the project to 17 in…
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile — The Bío Bío River is the second-longest in Chile, forming in the Andes near the Argentine border and running 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest before emptying…
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile — For the last 30 years, more and more hydroelectric power plants have been popping up along Chile’s Bío Bío River, the second-largest in the country. Every…
"It might be the highest density of trout species on Earth," says podcast guest Ulrich Eichelmann of Balkan countries' riverine legacy, which has become threatened by a tsunami of hydroelectric…
NDJI, Cameroon – Batchenga, 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, is slowly reopening. After serving as a ramp at the start of a national road linking the…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived…
SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “I remember seeing a buffalo, its head tied to a floating barrel, drifting down the river,” says Pheng Sisuwath, gesturing to the Sekong River from his…
JAKARTA — Indonesian police are investigating possible negligence in the death of a Chinese construction worker at the site of a controversial hydroelectric dam in the only known habitat of…
The Chiew Larn reservoir in southern Thailand looks like it’s been part of the landscape for millennia. Ancient limestone karst cliffs rise from its waters, and emerald-hued forested islands dot…
A hydroelectric dam complex in southern Argentina, one of the country’s largest energy projects, is facing backlash from conservationists and Indigenous communities who are worried about its impact on the…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
Brazil’s Amazon dam plans have been slowed down over the past decade due to realization by the country’s electrical authorities that obtaining environmental licenses would be difficult when Indigenous peoples…